HDR Software

martinsmith99 · Expire: 2013-11-18

Anyone prefer Photomatix software over Photoshop?

I've downloaded Photomatix trial and not sure that I can justify 73GBP to do something that CS3 already does. I've heard good things about Photomatix, but I'm thinking that this may be hype.

Rob Leslie · Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 1103 Location: UK Swindon

I tried the trial version and didn’t think much of it. It lacks any real control.
I also don’t use the Automate- Merge to HDR in PS for the same reason.
I still do it the old way with layer masks in PS, it is also quicker when you have it written as an action and gives full control so you don’t end up with results that lack good highlight and shadow tones and resemble air brush art rather than a photo.
Any good PS reference manual will give details of using layer masks and gaussian blur for tone selections.
Once you have your layers you can paint the degree of effect or blend you want before you merge.
(This is similar to the way we did it in the darkroom.)
Auto anything (IMO) never works very well.
How can auto anything know what you want or what the photo is?
Unless you like everything to look the same!

martinsmith99 · Expire: 2013-11-18

Thanks Rob. I barely noticed any difference between the 2 different softwares in terms of result. Photomatix was far quicker though.

Yes, I'll carry on using masks to blend images.

YureW · Joined: 12 Feb 2009 Posts: 45 Location: Trieste, Italy

I have no Photoshop and no Photomatix, as they don't run in Linux. I use QTPFSGui, instead, for my HDR's. I can't say if it is good as Photomatix, but works well for me.
However, an interesting tool which works under Linux and Windows, is Enfuse:
http://enblend.sourceforge.net/

It uses different exposures, just like an HDR generation software, but it does not generate HDR files, so there's no need to tonemap.
It operates on input images with an exposure fusion algorithm and gives a LDR TIFF as output, very quickly. Results are "natural" images.
You can tune some parameters used by the algorithm and control the appearance of the final image.

An interesting feature is that it not only merge images with different exposures, but even different DOF.

Rense · Expire: 2016-12-25

I use dynamic photo HDR. Like this above Photomatix

SkedAddled · Expire: 2021-08-12

I've tried Photomatix and Dynamic Photo HDR. I am so far unable to land on an acceptable result with the tonemapping and color controls, but Dynamic Photo HDR is far less over-the-top than Photomatix so far.

I actually like the realistic results obtained from CS3. The pictures are not oversaturated, and colors remain pretty faithful to the base exposure.

Rob Leslie · Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 1103 Location: UK Swindon

From results I see basically CS3 and 2 uses an automated version of its layer mask capability to produce its results without the control one has by doing the process your self. This can be a good starting point in the learning curve but you will find combining just two exposures by manual methods will better the automated way.