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Viewer and Thumbnailer
The golden oldie! Lightweight viewer for
Radiance(.hdr), floating point TIFF(.tif) and (.pfm) files.
Launches immediately, and lets you tap through exposures with +/-
keys.
PC | Free | stalled
HDR Thumbnail Browser with display
mapping capabilites. The only app supporting every single HDR file
format. HDR Combination works with absolute luminance calibration,
hence suitable for analytical applications.
Mac | Free | active
Excellent everyday thumbnail browser.
Can deal with Radiance and OpenEXR files, althoug not perform any
display mapping. But it's packed with tons of general-purpose
features. Batch-Renaming, Lossless JPEG transformations and the
like.
Mac, PC, Linux | Free | active
HDR Utilities
Combines exposures to an HDRI with
semi-manual ghostbusting (painting garbage masks), and a unique
pin-warping aligment. Sports 6 different tonemappers and slick
little curve/color controls to tweak the output right away.
Super-polished interface and integrated help.
PC | $39 | active
HDR Combination with a unique histogram
slicing mode to manually fight those pesky ghosts. Also allows to
manually fine tune exposure alignment. The Advanced version
features a local tone-mapper that does a phantastic job in working
out contrasty details.
Mac, PC | Basic: Free, Advanced: $52 |
active
The godfather of all HDR utilities. HDR
Combination is very dated, and it does tone mapping only via
Plugins. But it has a good amount of editing capabilites, that
still make it the swiss army knife in HDR. Development on HDRShop
has stalled, though.
PC | v1: Free, v2: $400 | stalled
HDR Combination and Tone-Mapping, very
user-friendly hence recommended for beginners. Sports ghost removal
and batch processing, which makes it photographer's favorite. Runs
fine in trial mode, but you get a whole lot of tone mapping
goodness in the full version.
Mac, PC | free Trial with watermarking, $99
| active
The new kid on the block, hosted right
here. Highly configurable HDR Combination and fastest tone-mapper
around. It runs HDRShop plugins, and performs basic conversion
tasks. Not quite as many editing features as HDRShop yet, but
eventually getting there...
PC | Free | active
pfsTools is the equivalent to PanoTools
in the HDR world: an excellent suite of powerful commandline
utilities. And QTpfsGui is the first derivative with a user
interface. Plenty of local TMOs for free, although not much
interactive feedback. Aligning exposures can be done via Hugin's
image stack.
Mac, PC, Linux | Free, Open Source |
active
Paint Packages
Full package, including Thumbnail
Browser and Album Generator and everything. Includes plenty of
tone-mappers and can apply them all on the fly as display mapping.
Really elaborate featureset, although not everything works reliably
in HDR mode.
PC | $55 | active
Screamingly fast editor, because it uses
the the CoreImage engine of OSX to do all the heavylifting. Meant
for the quick edit on the go, but turns out to have more HDR
editing capabilites than anything else. Still fighting for
stability, and deserves some support by early adopters.
Mac | honor system | active,
alpha-stage
Formerly known as Film Gimp, and
recently reborn as (and in) Glasgow. This one had a tough life
already, ever since it split from the GIMP family to become a movie
star. Features a very comprehensive color management system, and
has a complete set of HDR painting tools.
Mac | free | semi-active, beta-stage
Full 32-bit editing and painting
capabilities since 2002, in the latest version 7 even with curve
adjustments. Based on a unique workflow, where filters and
adjustments are painted on. Includes direct HDR capturing from a
tethered camera.
PC, Linux | regular $699, now $399 |
semi-active
The king. Has gained quite some weight
over the time. The "Extended" version has HDR Layers and Brushes,
on top of a great standard HDR Generator. Tonemapping is basic, but
very predictable, and extends via Plugins from FDRTools, Photomatix
and Artizen. Huge in stability and handling big files.
Mac, PC | Basic $699, Extended $999 |
active
Could be Photoshop's twin, except that
it is tiny and ultraportable. Runs on almost every OS, and has all
the layers, brushes and adjustments laid out just like Photoshop.
Still in beta stage with some stability issues, but something to
keep an eye on.
Mac, PC, Linux, BeOS, FreeBSD, Zedora... |
$39 | active, beta-stage
Panorama Stitching
Everything is automatic here, not even
the exposure brackets have to be sorted out. You just give it a
folder and it spits out any pano it can stitch. Works often great,
but sometimes makes funny choices. Manual control is somewhat
limited. Latest version 1.4 supports Fisheye, has a super slick
interface, and plays well with 64-bit Windows.
Mac, PC | $119 | semi-active
Community-driven stitcher, that carries
on the tradition of PanoTools in the Open Source domain. Can stitch
HDR segments, supports fisheye lenses and a huge amount of fun
panoramic projections. Soon to step up to a modern one-step
workflow from LDR bracketed segments to HDR panorama.
Mac, PC, Linux | Free, Open Source | active
and buzzing
Leading PanoTools-Frontend, with
reliable automatic control point creation and excellent manual
tweakability. Fisheye support is a given, and it already sports HDR
pano generation directly from the LDR exposure brackets. Even
includes a Tonemapping module.
Mac, PC | $148 | active
The top edition Stitcher Unlimited 5.6
can stitch HDR segments. Does not sport a modern one-step workflow,
HDRs have to be generated elsewhere. RealViz Stitcher is known for
the flashiest interface, panoramic patching tools, and extra
import/export formats. Must register to download demo
version.
Mac, PC | $580 | active
I'm cheap. Show me only free software! ...ah, never mind - I'm a Pro, show them all!