Photomatix lets you create stunning images
from multiple photos, taken at varying exposures.
In this video, I’m going to show you how to process these 3 photos in Photomatix Pro.
The 1st photo was taken at the normal exposure and shows the details in the mid tones.
This is not sufficient to show well the details in both the sky and the shadows.
The 2nd photo is underexposed and shows the details in the sky well.
The 3rd photo is overexposed and shows the details in the shadows well.
To load the photos, select the files with Windows Explorer
and drag them to the Photomatix program.
You will then get a dialog asking you what you'd like to do with these files.
Select ‘MERGE FOR HDR PROCESSING’
and click on ‘OK’.
The next dialog lists the file selected.
If necessary, you could remove files or select others.
Click on ‘OK’ to go to the next step.
The next window let you specify options for
pre-processing and merging the photos.
The 3 photos of the lighthouse were taken using a tripod,
but we still check the ‘ALIGN SOURCE IMAGES’ option
to correct for small alignment problems that may happen, even with the tripod.
If your scene includes moving objects or people,
check the ‘SHOW OPTIONS TO REMOVE GHOSTS’ box.
If the files you loaded were RAW files,
check the ‘REDUCE NOISE’ option,
with ‘ALL SOURCE IMAGES’ selected.
You may also check this option with JPEG or TIFF files if needed.
Click on ‘ALIGN & MERGE TO HDR’.
The preview in the middle shows a preview of the final tonemapped image.
You can adjust the preview size using the magnifier icons on top.
You can also click the ‘FIT’ button, to fit the preview
in the available space between the settings and the presets windows.
The presets panel on the right lets you select the style for your image.
You can display the thumbnails in 2 columns,
or at a larger size by clicking on the icons
on the top right of the presets panel.
The built-in presets show by default.
If you had saved custom presets, click on the ‘MY PRESETS’ tab to view their thumbnails.
You can filter the preset display to show only those of the type you’re interested in,
by selecting a category name from the pop-up menu item on top of the panel.
Try different presets to choose a style you like from the thumbnails listed.
Clicking on a thumbnail shows the effect of the preset on the preview window.
Balanced
Photographic
Natural
Soft
Monochrome
Painterly
Painterly 4
Painterly 5
Vibrant
Surreal
Surreal 2
Grunge
Creative
Once you've found a preset you like, you can refine the effect
by adjusting the controls on the SETTINGS window on the left.
With the buttons at the bottom the window, you can undo or redo settings
and restore the default settings for the current method.
Once you're satisfied with the adjustments, click on the ‘APPLY’ button
so that you can then save the image.
Before saving, you can add a finishing touch to your image.
The finishing touch panel lets you increase the contrast of you your image,
sharpen it
or adjust the saturation of individual colors.
The final image has 16-bits per color channel.
When you save the image, you can choose to save it as 8-bit JPEG as desired.
You can see several examples of tonemapped images
in the User Gallery at the HDRsoft website.
Download a free trial of Photomatix Pro 5 today
at HDRsoft.com,
and see what it can do for your photos.
The trial is free and does not expire.
It simply adds a Photomatix watermark to the final image.