Luminance HDR

There are two things you can do with the Luminance HDR application developed by Davide Anastasia. You can take a bunch of LDR or RAW images and use them to come up with an HDR image – that would be the first thing. The second thing you can do with Luminance HDR is load and edit HDR images. All this functionality is offered to you for the awesome price of free.

Luminance HDR is available for Windows (32-bit and 64-bit editions), for Mac OS X, and for Linux. Getting the application up and running on a Windows PC is a standard process: download an executable, run it, click through the setup wizard. It must be mentioned that the setup wizard asks you to pick one of several supported languages and asks you to choose between a Full Installation (includes core files, documentation, translation, file associations), a Compact installation (just the core files), and Custom Installation (choose what you want to install).

The main pane on Luminance HDR’s interface presents the image you’re working on. To the left there’s a Tonemap pane and above it there are several buttons associated with different functions the application can perform. It’s really a very simple layout that’s easy to figure out. Even a novice user will not find it challenging.

As mentioned above, you can use Luminance HDR to create and to edit HDR images.

A very handy wizard will guide you through the process of fusing bracketed images taken with different exposures to make an HDR image. You will have to select some LDR images (JPEG, PNG, PPM, PBM, TIFF and RAW are supported), pick an alignment method, and pick a predefined profile or use a custom configuration. In very little time Luminance HDR will be done creating an HDR image for you.
The application’s editing functionality includes the following: tonemap HDR images, rotate, resize, and crop HDR images.

Luminance HDR is an open source project, meaning you won’t have to part with your money to use the application. You are welcome to do so though – make a donation if you like the application and want to support its development.

This user friendly tool lets you easily create and lets you edit HDR images.