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Documentation / EasyHDR Lightroom Plug-in

EasyHDR is distributed along with a free Adobe Lightroom Classic plug-in. The plug-in is an interface between standalone easyHDR software and Adobe Lightroom. It cannot be used alone. It allows exporting single photos or HDR sequences directly from Lightroom to easyHDR for automatic or manual processing. The results are imported back to Lightroom catalog once the processing is finished.

Plug-in installation

If Adobe Lightroom Classic is detected in the system, the plug-in is automatically installed by easyHDR setup program. It is placed into the standard location, which is:

• Windows:
  C:\Users\[name]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\ Lightroom\Modules\
• MacOS:
  /Users/[name]/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/Modules
  or
  /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/Modules

Lightroom scans this folder when it's started and finds the installed plug-ins. It means you have to restart Lightroom, if you have installed easyHDR while Lightroom was running. The installer also adds two export presets to Lightroom. In case if the plug-in is for some reason not installed automatically, please download it and add with the Lightroom's plug-in manager.

Lightroom plug-in manager. EasyHDR plug-in is installed and running.

How to use easyHDR Lightroom plug-in

The most basic and simple way of working with the plug-in is to use one of two export presets installed along with it. To do it, just mark the HDR photo sequence, or a single image in Lightroom's catalog and choose File->Export with Preset->easyHDR 3->... from the Lightroom's main menu, or unfold the Export menu from the popup.

Export preset option in the main menu.

Export preset option in the popup menu.

Those two presets allow exporting the selected images from Lightroom for fully manual processing. Their operation differs only in case of exporting RAWs. One is for exporting original RAWs, not developed by Lightroom, directly into easyHDR. EasyHDR is then responsible for developing them and applying lens correction. The other preset lets Lightroom do RAW development and lens correction. Lightroom exports pre-processed 16-bit TIFF images to easyHDR. That ensures no quality loss in the process. Once you save the result in easyHDR, or exit the program, the result is imported into Lightroom's catalog.

When easyHDR works in the plug-in mode, a "PLUG-IN" text is visible in the title bar. You can also notice a special button in the toolbox: "Quick save and return to Lightroom".

EasyHDR working in the plug-in mode.

The "Quick save and return to Lightroom" button allows, with a single click, saving the result in the source folder under default file name and immediate exiting easyHDR and getting back to Lightroom. EasyHDR would also prompt for saving if you try to exit it, or would ask whether you want to finish and get back to Lightroom after you save the image in any folder of your choice. You can save many results, under different names, but only the last one will be imported to Lightroom catalog.

In order to choose advanced plug-in options, please choose File->Export... from the main menu, or Export->Export... from the popup menu. Then, from the Export To: drop down list, select "easyHDR 3".

EasyHDR plug-in export settings.

The plug-in allows three modes of operation:

• Manually edit the photos with easyHDR 3 - the selected photo or a sequence of photos (to be merged to HDR) is loaded into easyHDR. You are responsible for processing and saving the result manually. Once you save the processed image, just exit easyHDR. The image is automatically imported to the Lightroom catalog. The "easyHDR 3 Processing Options", that you can edit in the plug-in settings, are the defaults set in easyHDR (since easyHDR version 3.14). It allows you to create own export presets for manual editing, that in combination with easyHDR's "Auto generate HDR" option, can speed up your workflow.
  
  EasyHDR new project settings.
  
  
• Process with easyHDR 3 in background - the selected photo or a sequence of photos (to be merged to HDR) is loaded into easyHDR, automatically processed using the settings provided by the plug-in, saved and finally imported into the Lightroom catalog. EasyHDR program window is visible during the process but cannot be used by the user. You can either choose an easyHDR built-in, or own created, user preset.
• Process with easyHDR 3 in background, each selected photo separately - each of the photos selected in Lightroom is loaded into easyHDR separately, one by one. No HDR image is generated - each photo is processed as a LDR. All generated results are imported into the Lightroom catalog.

You can always export through the advanced plug-in settings view, or create own set of export presets. Making a new one is really simple. Just select easyHDR's plug-in settings and click "Add" button. Then provide the name and choose "easyHDR 3" folder.

New export preset.