First Plunge into HDR

by | Oct 12, 2010 | Recommendations | 1 comment

Well, I gave in and finally bought Photomatix. After experimenting with three different programs, Lightroom, Photoshop CS5, and Photomatix, I figured this was the best way to go.

Lightroom does an excellent job simulating HDR with it’s Fill Light slider, but the quality gets real low real quick. I have a few presets created, and it works nice for some pictures, but it just doesn’t make the cut, especially since it can only work with one, single, 8-bit or 16-bit image.

I was able to use Photoshop CS5 for a few days with a trial version. I worked really hard to get what I wanted, even to the point of reading up on it and following specific directions. There were just too many steps. And the end product always appeared flat. If I ever upgrade to CS5, I’ll have more time to work with it, but that upgrade will probably be in the far future.

It was at least a year ago that I first started looking into Photomatix. With the perpetual, watermarked, trial version, I remember being very surprised and pleased with the colorful, almost surreal product that it produced. And consistent, too. Every time I would take a batch of pictures through, I always came up with something I liked. It’s got a lot of settings and you could tweak things forever, but once you get used to it, it really doesn’t take that much time. Usually, a little contrast had to be added in Lightroom once the merge was completed.

So I went ahead and bought it. It’s normally like $100, but you can get free 15% or 20% coupons online. Here are a few of my first images with the program. They are all fusions of three images, each with a difference of at least one stop of light.

On the Lookout

10-05-10_6256 10-05-10_6254 10-05-10_6255-Edit

Lazy Afternoon

10-05-10_6330-Edit 10-05-10_6328-Edit 10-05-10_6329-Edit

Lovers Leap Lookout

10-05-10_6294-Edit 10-05-10_6292-Edit 10-05-10_6293-Edit

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1 Comment

  1. Robert

    Wow! I just love HDR images!

    Reply

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