DNG bracket merge lacks quality of the source images

[Greg Benz]

I'm looking to do a merge of multiple exposures (brackets) with multiple camera angles (pano). My goal is to output a high-quality DNG which I can then process in Lightroom (using the "HDR" mode to support HDR display). 

To keep things simple, I'm just testing the brackets for now. 

My approach:

1. Open 5 source images (DNG files from a DJI drone)
2. I select the images in "source images" tab, right-click and choose "link selected images".
3. In the "create panorama tab", I set HDR file format to DNG and have the output checked only for "HDR panorama".

The output is a valid DNG, however the quality is reduced compared to the source images. The color profile option in Lightroom only shows "color" as an option, whereas the source images are supported with "Adobe Landscape" and other similar options (this is also true if I use LR's "merge to HDR" to create a single DNG from my 5 original DNG captures. 

Additionally, the color is very different. My source has yellow sunset clouds, whereas the PTGui DNG shows a rather pink result. The output from LR is much more consistent with the original images. 

I see that the LrC output is DNG v1.7 16-bit float (with lossy JXL compression), while the PTGui output is DNG v1.6 32-bit float (no compression or preview). I'm not sure if this is relevant, but it jumps out as a clear difference in the encoding.

Is there a way to merge to DNG with the same preservation of color and profile options that I see from LR's merge?

Thank you,

Greg

[PTGui Support]

Hi Greg,

I have your files, I will investigate.

Kind regards,

Joost Nieuwenhuijse
www.ptgui.com

On 1/2/26 00:33, Greg Benz wrote:
> I'm looking to do a merge of multiple exposures (brackets) with multiple
> camera angles (pano). My goal is to output a high-quality DNG which I
> can then process in Lightroom (using the "HDR" mode to support HDR
> display).
> To keep things simple, I'm just testing the brackets for now.
>
> My approach:
>

> 1. Open 5 source images (DNG files from a DJI drone)
> 2. I select the images in "source images" tab, right-click and choose
> "link selected images".
> 3. In the "create panorama tab", I set HDR file format to DNG and have

> the output checked only for "HDR panorama".
>
> The output is a valid DNG, however the quality is reduced compared to
> the source images. The color profile option in Lightroom only shows
> "color" as an option, whereas the source images are supported with
> "Adobe Landscape" and other similar options (this is also true if I use
> LR's "merge to HDR" to create a single DNG from my 5 original DNG captures.
>
> Additionally, the color is very different. My source has yellow sunset
> clouds, whereas the PTGui DNG shows a rather pink result. The output
> from LR is much more consistent with the original images.
>
> I see that the LrC output is DNG v1.7 16-bit float (with lossy JXL
> compression), while the PTGui output is DNG v1.6 32-bit float (no
> compression or preview). I'm not sure if this is relevant, but it jumps
> out as a clear difference in the encoding.
>
> Is there a way to merge to DNG with the same preservation of color and
> profile options that I see from LR's merge?
>
> Thank you,
> Greg
>
>

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