I have not yet used any of the Exposure Fusion options (these are not HDR - they simply merge multiple exposures, which is useful for night photography, for example). I plan to create a few of my own presets as there aren't that many built-in presets that provide a natural or realistic looking result. My approach is to find a preset that provides a reasonable result and tweak the settings from there. I have used both the Contrast Optimizer and Detail Enhancer tone-mapping methods with good results. The raw file conversion in Photomatix Pro is okay, but even the dev admits it is not as good as Lightroom/ACR or other high-end raw converters.
Photomatix pro 4 how to#
I export images from Lightroom using the plugin supplied with Photomatix Pro (if you use ProPhoto RGB in Lightroom, check the dev's website for instructions as to how to preserve this colour profile on export). The selective deghosting feature in Photomatix Pro also works very well, better than any automatic deghosting methods that I tried.
Photomatix Pro did as well as Photoshop CC (which is supposedly the best at aligning images), and better than other HDR apps, including one that makes a big deal about its ability to align handheld images. I mostly shoot sequences of 3 and 5 images handheld, so auto alignment is a critical feature. It produced the best results, offers the most features and was the easiest to use (after some learning time). * In case of older versions than 4.2 you can follow instructions I posted here.I tried several HDR apps (and the Merge to HDR Pro feature in Photoshop CC) before deciding to buy Photomatix Pro.
Photomatix pro 4 upgrade#
If you haven’t updated to 4.2 visit HDRsoft homepage and download your upgrade (in case you’re eligible to it).
Photomatix pro 4 install#
Here are the instructions, on how to install the presets*: Note: if you downloaded some of my presets previously you can delete or overwrite them as all of the previous presets are included in this pack. Please note that some of the presets will only work in Photomatix Pro 5 or newer as some of them require Fusion/Real-Estate or Contrast Optimizer which were introduced in Photomatix Pro 5. There are both very realistic presets and more artistic ones, colourful and black & white – everyone should find something for himself. Summing up, the collection contains 111 free presets good for landscape, architecture and street HDR photography.