Today pre order starts of Aurora HDR 2019, one of the most extensive post processing tools for HDR photography. As a cityscape photographer I use HDR technology quite a lot so that is the reason why I am always interested in new HDR software. In this article you can read the main new features of Aurora HDR 2019 (compared to Aurora HDR 2018), my first thoughts about the pre sale pre sale version I received from Skylum and more information about a pre sale discount you can benefit from. This discount is for the full version and upgrade version of Aurora HDR 2019.
Pre-order price upgrade: $59,-
($49,- with discount code RAWSTER)
Order here >
Pre-order prijs full version: $99,-
($89,- with discount code RAWSTER)
Order here >
Release date: 4 October 2018
Supported operating systems: Windows en Mac
Pre order Aurora HDR 2019 here with discount code RAWSTER
Which HDR software do I use?
Before I explain the new features of Aurora HDR 2019 I want to tell you more about the HDR software I use nowadays. Years ago I was using Photomatix quite a lot, but I didn’t like it too much because sometimes it was hard to get realistic HDR photos, the type of HDR I prefer. So I changed to HDR Pro in Adobe Photoshop, merged the photos to a 32 bits file and finished the photo in Camera RAW or Lightroom.
But Aurora HDR came and I was quite impressed about all features of this software. The 2017 version looked nice, but it didn’t convince me and was quite slow. Aurora HDR 2018 was the version that convinced me, because it was much faster and new cool features were added. Aurora HDR is not only about merging the photo. It is the full workflow that HDR photographers need and it is even possible to use Aurora HDR as a stand alone post processing tool.
What is new in Aurora HDR 2019?
It seems like the developers of Skylum worked hard, because great features are added to Aurora HDR 2019. Watch the video on top of this article to check out the main new features.
Advantages and disadvantages of Aurora HDR 2019
Every software has good things and things that can be better, also Aurora HDR 2019.
Advantages Aurora HDR 2019
– Most complete HDR software in the market
– Clear interface and quite easy to use (and learn how to use)
– Many plugins with other post processing software
– Great software for the realistic HDR and for the creative HDR photos
– After the photo merge the starting point looks quite good right away
Below you can find a comparison of how the starting point (so after merging the photos) looks in Lightroom (left) and Aurora HDR 2019 (right). Quite a difference as you can see.
Disadvantages of Aurora HDR 2019
– It is faster, but to me it can be even faster. The post processing part has improved a lot, but merging the photos itself works still quite slow
– Why rename presets to looks? Every post processing software name it presets
Conclusion
In the past days I worked quite a lot in Aurora HDR 2019 and I am really happy with the improvements. According to me it is the best HDR post processing software out there for HDR photographers.
Do you have any experience with Aurora HDR? Maybe with the 2018 or 2017 version? Please let us know your thoughts by leaving a reply to this post. You can also ask us any question related to the new Aurora HDR 2019.