From time to time one needs to process a bigger number of photos with the exact same settings. I may be a huge panorama, HDR time-lapse, or something different. In those cases, the batch processing in Photoengine can come really handy. And today I will show you how to use it.
So first thing first, you need to have all the photos you want to process ready. That means that if you have them in Lightroom, first correct any camera problems (distortions, chromatic abberations, vignetting and similar), and then export them either as tiff or jpg files depending on the quality you require. You should export everything in a single folder, with nothing else in it.
Once this is done, you can continue in Photoengine. But before choosing batch, you need to create a preset, so the program knows which adjustments to apply to the photos. For this just choose any of the series, add them to the project and click on Create tonemapped HDR project.
Now tweak the settings until you like the result. These are the settings that we will be applying to all the photos. Once satisfied, choose Add under presets. In the new window, name you preset whatever you want. Here I chosen the name Panorama, as that’s what I’m processing here. Save the preset by clicking OK.
Now you need to close this project, so choose File/Close. You don’t need to save the result, as we already have what we need, the preset.
To batch all the files, now choose File/Batch. In the window that opens, you have to select a few things:
- the source directory – where Photoengine will look for the files
- destination directory – where you want to save the results (is the same as source by default)
- file format and quality – how the result will be saved, either jpg or tiff
- number of exposures – how many exposures will be processed at once. In my case, it’s 5. Note that all have to have the same number of exposures, or the batch will not produce correct results
- auto align – if PhotoEngine should try to auto align the brackets, only if you took them handheld
- use preset – check this option, and then choose the saved preset from the list on the right
And thats all. once you confirm with OK, Photoengine will go through all the files in the folder and merge them all into tonemapped HDR files with your settings applied.
For panoramas I like to use the other method mostly. That is to first create the panoramas from brackets, and then merge them in PhotoEngine. But there are situations, like for instance a 360 degree panorama, where this approach, by batching all the exposures first, is much better, as Photoengine does not support 360 images, and will crate an ugly break in them.
Feel free to ask any questions if something is not explayned properly.
