Comments on: Photomatix first look

By: Andreas Manessinger

Andreas Manessinger — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 09:29:42 +0000

Wow, Eric, that’s fantastic. The examples for enfuse look gorgeous. I’ll try it tonight

By: Eric Jeschke

Eric Jeschke — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 03:43:11 +0000

This table may be of interest:
http://wiki.panotools.org/HDR_Software_overview

By: Eric Jeschke

Eric Jeschke — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 03:32:52 +0000

If you are interested in free, you might want to check out qtpfsgui:

http://qtpfsgui.sourceforge.net/

or enfuse:

http://wiki.panotools.org/Enfuse

–Eric

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:28:57 +0000

I agree with you, Thomas. To me, they generally look like cartoon images or something that you might find in the pages of a comic book, but I’m starting to believe that, with careful post processing, you can bring out a picture that has that certain glow, is not overdone, and has an exceptional dynamic range. I’m going to continue to experiment with it.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:11:14 +0000

Hm, usually I really hate HDRs. They tend to look artifical and simply overcooked. But recently, I’ve come across more and more subtle applications in which the technique was really applied to good use. Maybe I should also get interested…

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:56:52 +0000

See, this is what I love about blogging. I learn so many things. Here, in this post alone, I’ve learned about two new HDR programs, EssentialHDR and Dynamic HDR, so I can check them out and see how they compare, resulting in possibly, another post!

By: reza

reza — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:28:46 +0000

Ugh, photomatix for 100 dollars? thats way too much

I bought and love Dynamic HDR. Its probably the best I’ve used. You can use any RAW and process it fully with. You can do that or use as many different exposed raw’s or jpegs.

The align feature is great, the options are great, its…its just the best. The results are also amazing too.

You can even add a little drama to flat jpegs by a process called PseudoHDR.

Google Dynamic HDR and try it. You’ll love it.

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:43:44 +0000

@Andreas: I’ll have a look. I have no immediate plans for purchase. As soon as I get back on someone’s payroll, then I can start buying stuff again. I was joking with my wife and said that it’s been too long since UPS has dropped anything off. It’s been months! I need a ‘fix’!!!

@Mark: Thanks, Mark. I am going to play with the controls a bit more. I just accepted the defaults and didn’t play much. I need to tweak the sliders here and there to find out what effect they have. As for the $100, oh well, just one of the hazards of blogging and learning new things!

The $100 doesn’t bother me so much, it’s the playing on ‘the dark side’ that’s getting to me!

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:32:09 +0000

Looks like a good first try Paul. I would play around with some of the blending settings in Photomatix to try to remove the halos that you have over the trees. Have fun!! Sorry to have cost you $100.

By: Andreas Manessinger

Andreas Manessinger — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:00:36 +0000

Paul, there is a new kid on the block, called EssentialHDR. They are currently in beta testing, but as far as I have seen from their examples, they have a very different approach to tone mapping, that may be more pleasing in some situations. Is there a reason to wait? Maybe, maybe not. I seem to always simply accept the default mapping in Photomatix, maybe increase light smoothing to max, and then do the rest in Photoshop. I suspect that I would not do much different in EssentialHDR, thus for me there is probably no big difference. You may consider the question before your purchase though. Gordon McGregor should be able to tell you more about EssentialHDR, I had only a cursory look into it, but he seems to have done more.