photomatix

Hi Does anyone have any experience of using photomatix? If so is this a package worth buying for acheiving good HDR shots by blending 2 or more images of the same scene? I am also thinking of getting elements 6, eventually when funds allow, would these two bits of software complement each other. I have no editing software at present.

Hi Johna

I've never used Photomatix but the results tend to be somewhat on the overblown side. Whether you like that or not is a matter of taste.

If you want to see what, if anything, HDR can do for your photography you could give a couple of free programs a try. "Easy HDR" has a freeware version obtained from http://www.easyhdr.com/download.php whilst the imaginatively titled "QTPFSGUI" is free and open source and can be had from http://qtpfsgui.sourceforge.net/download.php

In terms of what would complement PSE, I wouldn't dismiss the idea of HDR software, but a good RAW converter can do wonders at bringing out underexposed areas providing some of the advantages of HDR without the hassle.

But try the two suggestions above - well worth the money!

Adrian

Hi Aidrian thnaks for the links I will give them a whirl. By suggesting that I may like to invest in a good raw converter I am assuming there is not one with PSE?

Hi,
Actually there is. But there are others considered better. A lot of members are very happy with Silkypix. See this thread.
Martin.

This is a matter of user control, not the programme, which appears to be the #1 choice in commercial software for this application. My demo has two totally different modes, one of which compresses dynamic range and looks nothing like the "extreme HDR" that you likely object to.

I'm quite happy with Photomatix. The few times I've used it, its produced good results.

You might have a look at Artizen as well.

In my experience of Photomatix, it seems pretty good - much easier than CS3 for producing HDR images, especially with tone mapping. There's a trial you can download at http://www.hdrsoft.com/ .

This month's Digital Camera magazine has a good tutorial for doing HDR in Photoshop, too (although not sure it'd work with Elements).

I have tried Photomatix and Artizen and thought Photomatix was the best until I downloaded a trial version of Mediachance Dynamicphoto HDR. Its fairly similar results but a much more intuitive interface and its cheaper
Simmo

Thanks for the link - I'd looked at MediaChance a long time ago.
Now they have a cheap ($16) HDR-style plugin for Photoshop that I'm just giving a quick whirl...
http://www.mediachance.com/plugins/redynamix.html

Matt

Why did you have to spill the beans?

I've been evaluating it as well. I have other Media Chance software and it has all been excellent, this looks good too.

This is a knowledge sharing community.

I use Photomatix quite a lot. I love it - and it is excellent for HDR images as well as pure tonemapping.

Start by downloading the trial version and use that a few times first.

www.hdrsoft.com

The last few uploads from my side is pure hdr with photomatix. Check the photo thread.

Two questions I aint sure about. When taking images for HDR is it best to shoot all raw or all JPEG?

What would you consider a good quality raw converter? Is PSE6 a good raw converter?

sorry 3 questions. thanks for all the above help anf info really interesting and useful


Johna

Shoot RAW. With one image, you can get +3 to -3 stops variation. In 1/2 stop increments that's 9 images and more than enough for any HDR software to produce a reasonable image.

That's is NOT HDR
Yes, you can take a single RAW file and do pseudo HDR.
The K10D, for example, has about 7 stops of detail (though the shadow end will have more noise).
It is not about the number of shots that feed into the HDR software, but their interval. I would suggest 5 or 7 shots at 2EV apart. Actually the K10D and K20D has a rather nice feature that allows 5 shots at 2EV to be taken automatically. That gives you 10 real stops of difference.

As I mentioned elsewhere, though, most "HDR" images I see fall into the category of pseudo HDR - tonemapped single images. There are a few where the dynamic range of the original image was just so huge that real HDR was the only way to capture the scene. (But there aren't many situations like that!!).

Here's one of my examples where pseudo HDR doesn't work - the range was huge. Even 5 exposures wasn't enough and I should have taken more!
From a pro photographer... this is one that's HDR, and this is one that isn't

Matt