Luminar tutorial: RAW exposure blending vs HDR Merge

This Luminar tutorial uses a waterfall photo with bright sky and dark rocks to explain exposure recovery from a single RAW file. The speaker demonstrates that Light Depth and Dodge & Burn darken the sky without revealing its cloud detail, then uses Develop RAW to recover information present in the file.

A single adjustment that lowers highlights and lifts shadows produces a result the speaker considers too flat. His alternative starts with a layer adjusted for the sky. He duplicates that layer and changes its Develop RAW settings to brighten the rocks, keeping highlights low to help the transition. A luminosity mask selects darker areas, and brush adjustments refine the blend around the waterfall, trees and water. He then merges the layers so later adjustments affect the whole image.

The demonstration uses Luminar's default profile; the speaker also discusses camera flat or neutral profiles when available. Recovery in this example depends on detail already captured in the RAW file.

The final comparison applies HDR Merge to the same single image through Extras. The speaker finds it faster and effective at recovering detail, but notes an odd foreground result and prefers the manually blended version for its more realistic appearance.