Best free bracketing app ?

darkosaric · Jun 6, 2019

Hi guys,

As my smartphone is my only digital camera, and I hate to work in port processing - I am looking for best free app that can do bracketing and merging the photos in the phone app itself.
I have searched and looked some HDR apps, but they either take one photo and then make some (usually ugly) post processing, or they take 3/5 photos - but then you need to put them in the Photoshop (or equivalent) and do the merging manually.
What do you recommend ?

Thanks!

Eric Rose · Jun 6, 2019

Might be useful if you mentioned what type of smartphone you have.

darkosaric · Jun 6, 2019

Samsung Galaxy S9.

RalphLambrecht · Jun 6, 2019

darkosaric said:
Hi guys,

As my smartphone is my only digital camera, and I hate to work in port processing - I am looking for best free app that can do bracketing and merging the photos in the phone app itself.
I have searched and looked some HDR apps, but they either take one photo and then make some (usually ugly) post processing, or they take 3/5 photos - but then you need to put them in the Photoshop (or equivalent) and do the merging manually.
What do you recommend ?

Thanks!

HDR is an overrated and by-gone hype.

runswithsizzers · Jun 7, 2019

Funny. If I were to say "black and white is an overrated and by-gone hype" the photo community would turn on me like a mad dog. But really and truly, is HDR photography any more artificial or manipulative than stripping all the color data from a digital image and adding grain to make it look like old-time b&w film photography? Yet faking b&w with a digital camera is routinely accepted, while HDR is some kind of an abomination. How very strange.

RalphLambrecht · Jun 7, 2019

runswithsizzers said:
Funny. If I were to say "black and white is an overrated and by-gone hype" the photo community would turn on me like a mad dog. But really and truly, is HDR photography any more artificial or manipulative than stripping all the color data from a digital image and adding grain to make it look like old-time b&w film photography? Yet faking b&w with a digital camera is routinely accepted, while HDR is some kind of an abomination. How very strange.

I fail to see the logic in this comparison.

darkosaric · Jun 7, 2019

I just want to make a picture through the window in dark apartment, and see outside, and inside content . In the darkroom I can burn the outside content, but in small phone sensor only possibility is bracketing. I don't want crazy HDR look, I just want one/two stop over and under exposed - and all glued together in one nice final picture with some smart app.

runswithsizzers · Jun 7, 2019

darkosaric said:
I just want to make a picture through the window in dark apartment, and see outside, and inside content . In the darkroom I can burn the outside content, but in small phone sensor only possibility is bracketing. I don't want crazy HDR look, I just want one/two stop over and under exposed - and all glued together in one nice final picture with some smart app.

Makes sense to me. If done carefully, HDR can produce quite natural results. No different, really, from using the curves tool to bring down the highlights and boost the shadows on a RAW file. I don't know why the mention of "HDR photography" provokes a knee-jerk negative response from some photographers.

I use an iPhone, so I cannot advise on Android apps. Since I have switched to shooting RAW on my APS-C digital cameras, I don't take as many RAW brackets as I used to back when I was shooting JPGs, only. I still like to play with HDR sometimes, but I do the merging on desktop software. (I hope there will be no visits from the HDR police!) Sorry, but I'm no help.

darkosaric · Jun 7, 2019

So far best that I have tested gives app "A Better Camera" - when you don't have people in the photo. It has annoying commercials that goes full screen while shooting (so you cannot see nothing), but even worse are skin tones:

jtk · Jun 8, 2019

I now previsualize my lnkjet prints, always using PS and rarely wanting to fake reality. Nobody has ever made a normal-looking silver or color image tho some of us think some hero they've read about did that and they slavishly yearn to copy him...

Hrenoled · Sep 9, 2019

RalphLambrecht said:
HDR is an overrated and by-gone hype.

Really so, you should not use it?

thinkingabout · Sep 18, 2019

You can try photo mate r3, I got it from Apknite. I've never personally tried merging in it but it handles raw processing really good for mobile. Have you tried lightroom mobile? Lightroom itself handles merging better than Photomatix, imo

darkosaric · Sep 19, 2019

Thanks thinkingabout, I will try photo mate r3. Lightroom did not tried, I just recently saw that my S9 has option for raw files (must use "pro" mode).

Chan Tran · Sep 19, 2019

HDR is really Dynamic Range Compression (DRC) similarly to audio compression so that you can hear clearly in noisy environment. The HDR take a high dynamic range images and compress them so that you can see details in both dark and bright area on your monitor or print.

markbau · Sep 19, 2019

RalphLambrecht said:
HDR is an overrated and by-gone hype.

I totally agree. It seems that there is always some photographic fad. I've been around a while and can recall the Poloroid transfer fad, you couldn't open a magazine without seeing it in advertisements. Remember the selective focus fad? The latest is the drone fad. HDR only works when you can't tell its HDR but most photos of this type scream "look at me, I'm HDR and I'm really cool"

Best free bracketing app ?

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