Oloneo HDRengine review

High dynamic range (HDR) photography involves shooting a scene at various exposure settings and combining them to create an image with a greater range of brightness than would normally be possible. Various general-purpose editors include a tool especially for this task, but dedicated HDR-processing software takes these techniques much further.

Oloneo HDRengine starts in the Browse module to help you locate your photos. Folder navigation could be neater but resizable previews, an EXIF data display and a Recent Projects panel keep things moving along nicely. Raw files are supported, with the ability to rescue highlight and shadow detail that’s often stored in these files but discarded in cameras’ JPEGs. Raw files from recently launched cameras such as the Canon PowerShot S100 and Panasonic GX1 aren’t yet covered, but otherwise the list of supported cameras is comprehensive. The lens distortion correction data that’s embedded into Micro Four Thirds cameras’ raw files was disregarded, though. Once the source images have been selected, there are options to align them automatically and to remove ghosts created by movement in the scene. Then it’s on to HDR processing.

The first thing that struck us about the main editing environment is how fast it is. The preview window updated instantly and constantly as we adjusted sliders, making it easy to fine-tune settings. When we zoomed in to see the image at 1:1 magnification, the preview resolution dropped as adjustments were made, but pixel-sharp previews appeared less than a second after we released the mouse button. When photos were shrunk to fit the screen, preview updates were pixel sharp and instant. It’s a huge improvement on the performance of HDR Soft Photomatix, and an even bigger improvement on the basic HDR functions in Adobe Photoshop Elements and Corel Paint Shop Pro.

This fast performance is put to good use, with the ability to roll the mouse over the Timeline (Oloneo’s name for the editing history) and instantly see the various states. An Add Version button saves a marker in the Timeline for easy retrieval. Rolling the mouse over the various Presets has the same effect.

The inability to read certain raw files’ lens distortion correction data is one limitation

The quality of the results is first rate. The package can perform subtle highlight and shadow recovery, dramatic treatments with an explicit HDR look, surreal vintage photo effects with all the luminosity detail sucked out of them and lots more besides. The controls are flexible and intuitive – not least because of the instant feedback – but we’d have liked a dedicated highlight recovery control in order for us to perform creative and restorative treatments separately.

The Presets include various split toning effects, giving shadows a blue tint and highlights a yellow tint, for example. However, there aren’t any controls to customise these effects. HDRengine also lacks noise reduction, which would be useful for raw image processing. For these features, advanced curve-based editing and more, you’ll need to stump up €148 (about £124) including VAT for Oloneo’s PhotoEngine software.

HDRengine makes a strong argument for software that does one job well. Its controls are far more advanced than Photoshop Elements’ HDR function, and are nearer to Photomatix Pro ($99) than Photomatix Essentials ($39). Meanwhile, its lightning-fast performance means it’s arguably better than either version of Photomatix. As usual, there’s a 30-day trial version to help convince wavering customers – we strongly recommend giving it a go.