First look at Aurora HDR 2018 from Macphun/Skylum, voted the Best App of 2017 by Apple!

Aurora HDR 2018 is the latest version of Macphun's HDR editor. In case you are wondering why the title has Macphun/Skylum that is because the developers are changing their name from Macphun to Skylum to reflect the fact that their two flagship applications (Luminar 2018 and Aurora HDR 2018) are now both available on Mac and Windows.

So, if you are not familiar with Aurora HDR 2018 then let me give you a quick introduction. We will start with what the developers say.

"The most advanced and complete high dynamic range photo editor ever created is coming soon to a Mac and PC near you. 

We’ve listened intently, and developed new Aurora HDR 2018 — a tool that will deliver an unrivaled HDR excellence whether your style is realistic or ultra-creative."

 You may already know or have now realised that the HDR in the software's name stands for "high dynamic range". Now, if you have come across some HDR images online you may have decided that HDR is not for you and that's perfectly understandable if all we are talking about are those images that look somewhat unreal and where the image has the appearance of all filters were applied at maximum levels!

Now I am not saying that these type of images are terrible... each to his own. Personally I prefer more subtle enhancements to my images, like the one above. Now you may think the image is just a normal correctly exposed image of the centre of Leeds. I did runit through Aurora HDR 2018 and I will go through the steps now, starting with the original image.

So, the first you probably noticed that the original hasn't got a level horizon and you'd be right. So, that was practically the first thing I sorted. Once that was done I had a good look at the image and decided that it looked a bit dull and lacking in contrast, without enough detail in the shadows. Here is the image opened up in Aurora HDR 2018.

As you can see, I am just using the one image and not the typical 3 or more images (same pov but different exposures, usually at + and - 1.0 EV either side). The software informs me that it will use Tone Mapping to create the HDR image. I then clicked the 'Create HDR' button to continue.

Once loaded into the software you are presented with the usual graphical user interface. The image is in the main window, whilst you have presets at the bottom and various tools and filter option on the right.

Zooming in on the bottom left of the screen you can see that the Preset group that is loaded is the 'Realistic HDR' group and that the first two presets in this group are 'Realistic & balanced' and 'Realistic Bright'.

Having a look around the rest of the screen we can find the zoom tool at the top. Here you can choose one of the defaults (such as 100%) or use the '-' and '+' buttons to either zoom in and out manually. Here a screenshot.

Moving on, let's take a closer look at the image. Here I have zoomed into the bottom right of the image.

I wanted to check that things were looking sharp and to see if there was any noise in that part of the image. Satisfied, I then looked at the 'before' and 'after' because on opening the file. Aurora had applied a basic tone mapping to the image. If you look at the right-hand panel you will see it says 'HDR Basic'. In the screenshot below you can see I am using the 'compare' tool so we can move the vertical line left and right so we can see what the effect has been.

As it has only applied a basic HDR effect there isn't a great deal of difference between the 'before' and 'after' images.

At the top right of the workspace you will see an icon highlighted in yellow. That is the button to hide or reveal the presets panel at the bottom of the workspace. Handy if you want to focus on the image without distractions as the image will enlarge to fill the window space that the presets panel had occupied. The shortcut for hiding or revealing the presents panel is the TAB key.

So, I have decided to apply the 'Realistic & Balanced' preset which as you can see is the very first preset on the left. You will also notice that there is a slider for how strongly you want to apply the preset. Currently it's set to 100 but you could set it anywhere between 0 and 100, though 0 is a bit superfluous as that is the same as not applying the preset in the first place!

Here is the image but with the 'compare' tool in use so we can judge the impact of the preset on the image. As I said earlier, you can move the vertical bar left or right across the image to check the whole image and decide if you like the impact the preset has made.

Also, in the right-hand panel you can tweak lots of different settings so you can, in effect, start with one of the presets, tweak it's settings to your liking and save that as a users preset' for future use and save yourself plenty of time if you have lots of images that we taken in the same light and are not too different from your original image.

Here is a screenshot with the vertical 'compare' tool over to the left so you can have a better idea of the impact of the preset on the rest of the image.

Note: if you decide you don't like the changes you can restart. There are a three of ways to do this. One is to use the 'Reset All Filters' option in the right-hand panel (see screenshot below). The other is to use the 'Undo' tool at the top (the curly arrow icon) or to use the 'History' tool which is just to the right and looks like a clock.

Note: Under the 'Reset All Filters' option you will see that it says "Save Filters Preset". If you had tweaked the filters applied to your image and wanted to create your very own preset then this is where you find the option to do so.

Here is a screenshot showing you the 'History' button and the various steps taken so far. You can undo them all or just go back a few steps using this tool.

So, moving on, I have applied the chosen preset and I am thinking of saving the image and have my choice applied. However, having looked at the image at 100% and checking the corners, I decide that I want to revert back to my original image and choose a different preset. That is why in the screenshot above you can see that the 'Original' option is selected. Once I have done that I then choose the 'Sharp & Crisp' preset. Here is a screenshot of my image with that applied and I am using the 'compare' tool to assess the impact of the preset at 100%.

Before I move on, I just wanted to talk about cropping your image. As I mentioned at the start, my image is a bit wonky. The 'Transform' tool is found near the top of the right-hand panel, looking like a trapezium shape. BTW the icon to the right that looks like the focal blades of a camera lens is for doing lens corrections, another handy tool if you lens has barrel or pincushion distortion.

Once you select the 'Transform' tool you are presented with the familiar tools.

So, you will see the list of options under 'Transform' are quite comprehensive and similar to what you room or would find in most photo editors like Lightroom, Photoshop, Affinity etc. In this image I need to level off the image so I use the 'Rotate' option to rotate the image anti-clockwise by a modest amount. In this case I choose a setting of -20.

I am happy with that as this image has lots of verticals and if you look at the buildings on the left the verticals match the grid.

In this screenshot you can see I applied the rotation to my image and then hidden the bottom panel (presets) and the right-hand panel (Filters etc). You can see that the software has automatically trimmed my image to get rid of the grey bits, unlike say. Lightroom would (if you select that option and why wouldn't you?).

So, now we have to crop our image using the 'Crop' tool, which can be found at the right side of the toolbar at the top.

Before I cropped the image I did a final check of the image at 100% paying particular attention to the corners. I noticed there was some noise in the image and decided I needed to use the 'Noise' tool.

In this screenshot you can see some colour noise in the clouds.

So, I went to the Noise option in the right-hand panel. You will have to scroll down through the various tools to come to the HDR Denoise options. Once there you will see that the three sliders are set as follows:

Amount = 0, Smooth = 100 and Boost = 0.

I increased Amount to 50, left Smooth at 100 and increased Boost to 50.

I was happy with the effect on the noise in the image and went on to crop the image to get rid of those grey areas as a result of applying the rotate option under the Transform tool options.

So, we are all done, at least as far as this image is concerned. I simply had to save the final image to my hard drive using the 'Export' tool at top right.

as you can see, you can export the image to your hard drive or to various social media or online communities such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr or 500px.

Once that is all done you just to the Close menu and don't choose the option to save any changes as you don't want you original to be over-written. You never know you might want to revisit it and try a different set of presets on it!

Thanks for reading and please take the time to visit my Patreon page by clicking on the button below.

Finally, you can get Aurora HDR 2018 at a reduced price with some free bonuses as well. Just use this link here: Aurora HDR 2018 Deal! or click on any of the images. The app has been voted by Apple as the best App of 2017!

FINALLY, DO NOT FORGET TO USE DISCOUNT CODE: NEWBELTANE
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