RF-Photography

The latest beta of PM 4, b2, came out a few days ago. It’s got some new features and a few tweaks so I’m going to give a bit of a preview-review of some of the new functionality. The folks at HDRSoft know I’m doing this and are fine with it. They’ve asked me not to show any screen shots of the GUI and I won’t. That’s unfortunate though because some of the biggest changes involve the GUI. I will try to describe some of them as best I can.

Part II of this review series discussed the current version of Photomatix.  As I noted there, it’s a terrific piece of software and, until PS CS5 HDR Pro was introduced, has been arguably the ‘gold standard’ of HDR software apps.  With the introduction of the new features in CS5 HDR Pro, there’s (arguably) a bit of a tussle for that title of ‘gold standard’.  Does any of that change with what’s coming in the new version of Photomatix?  Let’s take a look. Photomatix Pro 4 Preview, con't >

Instalment two in this series is to look at Photomatix Pro from HDRSoft.  Photomatix is probably the most used HDR application out there.  It’s been continually improved over time and integration with other applications has been added (more later).

Photomatix has always been reasonably fast in terms of loading and processing a bracketed sequence, applying tonemapping adjustments and rendering out the tonemapped LDR file.  Until HDR Pro in CS5, it was certainly the fastest I’ve used but now it seems that CS5 has moved to the top step in terms of speed.

When creating a merged HDR file, Photomatix works best with TIFF files.  You can load RAW files into it and it will interpret the RAW files but it works faster if you load it with TIFFs even though the TIFF files are much larger.  The Lightroom plugin for Photomatix uses LR to convert the RAW files to TIFF before loading to PM.  Using this route, your speed will be limited by how fast Lightroom converts the files.  For users of LR this is a convenient workflow though.

PM is a colour managed application.  You can tag your HDR files with a colour space so that everything stays in a colour managed loop from start to finish.  If you load RAW files into PM directly, you can choose what colour space to assign to the primary input files.  Your choices are sRGB, AdobeRGB and ProPhotoRGB.  If you’re using the LR plugin to load files into PM, it’s a bit wonky to get the files tagged with a profile.  There are two routes in LR to export the files.  You can go to File>Plugin Extras>Export to Photomatix Pro but using this, what might seem the logical route, doesn’t give you the option to tag the input files.  If you then open the tonemapped file for further editing you’ll be presented with the Missing Profile warning.  In order to get the files properly tagged, you need to go to File>Export, choose Photomatix Pro on the left and you’ll be presented with the option to select file type (using the File>Export>Plugin Extras>Export to Photomatix Pro, the file type is automatically TIFF and 16 bit, no choices), bit depth and colour space.  It would be nice if the folks at HDRSoft would incorporate these choices into their own export dialogue. Photomatix Pro Review, con't >

Over the next few posts on the blog, I’m going to do reviews of some of the many HDR software applications out there on the market. These aren’t going to be highly technical or get into the nitty gritty of what each individual slider or control does. What I’m looking at is results. Results on real world images. How easy and intuitive is the software to use? How easily can you generate a ‘realistic’ result? How well can it generate the ‘grunge’ HDR look? How fast is it (i.e., can it be used in a workflow when turnaround time is important)? What’s the look and feel of the software? These are the kinds of things I’m going to be looking at.  I’ll also look at what kind of documentation/support is available for each application.  In all cases, once the HDR file has been tonemapped into a 16 bit space, no further editing will be done.  The goal is to show only what the HDR applications in isolation can do.

‘Who the hell are you?’ you may be asking as you read this. Well, I’m no Jack Howard, author of “Practical HDRI” or Trey Ratcliff of Stuck in Customs fame.  Not on their worst days and on my best days.  I’m just you’re averge schmuck photographer who (a) likes HDR and what it can do, (b) has tried a fair number of different HDR apps and (c) uses HDR in some of my photography.  I’ve written a few previous commentaries on HDR here in the blog as well.  I’m not sponsored by any company and I don’t get freebies so the thoughts and opinions expressed during these tests will be genuine and without the filter of having to try to keep someone happy in order to keep the swag train running. HDR Software Review Intro, con't >

I wrote a post a while back called The Great HDR Debate.  That was almost a year ago.  It seems that the debate over HDR, its validity as a photo editing tool, the results generated and the concept in total remain every bit as controversial and perhaps even moreso than at that time.  It seems as though the anti-HDR camp is becoming increasingly zealous in their opposition to HDR in any form.

I was recently on a photo forum where a member had asked a question about how to do HDR.  He’d seen some, thought it was interesting and wanted to try it out but didn’t know how to get started.  Through more than a page of responses there were a raft of people telling him ‘don’t bother’ or ‘HDR sucks’, or ‘go ahead and check it out but NEVER use it on real photos’.  Probably a dozen or more responses telling him how bad HDR was but not one person answering his actual question.  Is this what it’s come to?  If so, why?

I’ve said in the past that I’m not a big fan of the hyper-processed, way over the top, comic book looking HDR effects.  It just doesn’t appeal to me.  But I know it does to some.  So be it.  It’s part of the subjective nature of the appreciation of art.  It continues to surprise me (although maybe it shouldn’t) that there is still, in this day and age, such a closed-minded, intolerant, ignorant presence in the art community. Great HDR Debate Pt II, con't >