This new process can be really useful for outdoor landscape photography. RAW files can now be combined either to create an HDR (high dynamic range) file from multiple exposures of one scene, or to create a panorama from shots of adjacent scenes, both of which are pretty common techniques for outdoor photographers. The resulting combined file is still a RAW file, so the process is very simple and flexible--a couple clicks to combine the files and then you start editing the combined RAW file in the normal fashion to adjust color and contrast, etc. Very simple and seems to work really well.
Here is an example using two exposures I took some years ago at Twister Falls on Eagle Creek. I had originally tried combining the shots in Photoshop, but the process was laborious and the results were never completely satisfactory. Here is the shot exposed for the foreground, and with the brightly lit areas in the background completely over-exposed:
Here is the shot exposed for the background with all the foreground so under-exposed that most detail is lost:
And here is the combined HDR file, after a few RAW adjustments:
Obviously, it would be possible to make further refinements to individual taste. One very cool thing is that Lightroom automatically aligns the two exposures and will automatically eliminate any "ghost" artifacts. In the shots above, the breeze from the falls had all the vegetation in the foreground moving, so the stalks of grass seen in front of the falls were in different positions in the two shots. The software automatically eliminated one of the ghost images so the grasses appear in only one position. Cool.
I tried a couple examples with panorama files and found those to be equally easy.
Thanks John! That will be helpful. I try to shoot HDR for waterfalls, trees, and water on sunny days but it's such a chore trying to combine each layer. Also when shooting in dynamic range too. Proper layering skills is one of my biggest challenges.
