[stl09]

I'm curious if anyone is aware of any software that would take 3 bracketed photos and blend them together to get one really good photo similar to the HDR process but not doing the HDR processing to the photo??

I could swear that I read or saw somewhere that there was software that did just this process but it was not doing HDR processing to the photo??

Any information or links would be greatly appreciated.

[boriscleto]

You probably want the Exposure blending in Photoshop Elements. You can do it by hand too.

Exposure Blending in Photoshop - Layers Magazine | Layers Magazine

Blended Exposures

An Introduction to Exposure Blending with RAW

[philbaum]

Photomatix, the oldest hdr software, and i'm sure many similar products, will also allow you to blend images without any of the hyper software effects. Photomatix, in the same program has 3 sub-programs: Detail enhancer, Tone (something), and Fusion. Fusion is pretty much the blending software you are looking for, i think.

The nice thing about photomatix and similar software, is that they have built-in alignment procedures for you, and ghosting removal, and some noise removal, all of which is optional. In photomatix, 2 alternate alignment procedures are provided depending on whether your images were tripod or freehand.

http://www.hdrsoft.com/index.html

The advantage of photoshop and PS elements is, if you're going to learn layers, or already have, this is probably a good first step in using them.

[stl09]

Thank you Boris and Phil for the information.

Doing some research I think I found a plugin for Lightroom that wil do exactlywhat I was hoping...it's called Enfuse.

[wildman]

I'm curious if anyone is aware of any software that would take 3 bracketed photos and blend them together to get one really good photo similar to the HDR process but not doing the HDR processing to the photo??

If by this you mean you just want to blend together 3 different exposures for optimum DR without any additional special effects than most any HDR program will do this. You just have to tell the software that's what you want:

Run through Photoshop HDR Pro set to the option of "photorealistic" (no additional special effects).

1- Three bracket Shot in the middle of the night only illuminated by a single 7 watt florescent.

2- "Normal" single middle exposure (EV -.3) for comparison.

But perhaps I misunderstand what you want.

[stl09]

If by this you mean you just want to blend together 3 different exposures for optimum DR without any additional special effects than most any HDR program will do this. You just have to tell the software that's what you want:

Run through Photoshop HDR Pro set to the option of "photorealistic" (no additional special effects).

1- Three bracket Shot in the middle of the night only illuminated by a single 7 watt florescent.

2- "Normal" single middle exposure (EV -.3) for comparison.

But perhaps I misunderstand what you want.

You are spot on with what I'm wanting to do. I guess I didn't realize that the HDR software would allow you to do that. I was waiting on purchasing any HDR software since I'm not real keen on the outcome that I've seen so far. I'm sure that everyone has a certain idea of what looks good but so many that I've seen all have a halo effect and it no longer looks real. I will take a look at your suggestions....thanks

[mattt]

I've been fiddling around with just this. I think that tone mapping gives you the halo. I took a difficult night exposure and redeveloped it from RAW and then blended them together using GIMP. I put them in a set here.

I worked with masks - it was more about learning how to do it than the actual result. I have next to no experience with advanced photo editing. The image below was originally posted in my Single in July Album as a 3 shot stitch job.