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HDR programs


skip_wilson

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<p>Hi to all,<br>

I am looking to purchase an HDR program and I have Windows 7 Professional version on my computer and Photoshop Elements 11. I have a Nikon D7100 that can exposure autobracket +/- 3 stops. I've heard that PhotoMatix Pro and PhotoMatix Essentials are good HDR programs. I would like anybody's opinion of that product or others with which you have had experience. Does the Pro version offer any significant advantages over the Essentials? Thanks in advance. Skip Wilson</p>

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<p>I have Photomatix Essentials 4, and it's so much better than the earlier version I used years ago that I'd consider upgrading if I used HDR more often. It's free to try.</p>

<p>There are other HDR programs but I don't use HDR or tonemapping very often, and Photomatix works so well even with my low end laptop that I've been satisfied. Some other HDR programs I've tried were more resource intensive, so if I planned to use HDR a lot I'd want a more powerful PC.</p>

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<p>Another vote for Photomatix. I don't like over-cooked HDR and it has good natural look options. I also really like the fact that you can draw around an area to select it and then tell the program to use a particular exposure in the selected area.</p>
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<p><a href="http://photographyforrealestate.net/2013/09/22/why-bother-with-photomatix-or-lrenfuse-for-real-estate-interior-photos/"><strong>Here's a pretty interesting article</strong></a> challenging the notion that dedicated HDR software for bracketed shots is needed, but I'm not convinced the single raw file edited in Lightroom to approximate the same look is necessarily "better". The differences are subtle: a bit more oddly emphasized reddishness in the Enfuse photo; a bit less highlight recovery in the single-shot tweaked in Lightroom. Odd colors and excessive saturation can be tweaked, but there are limits even to Lightroom's capability to recover highlights from overexposed and shadows from underexposed single shots.</p>
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<p>I have Photomatix Essentials, and find it quite good; at least it tends to prevent overcooked HDR images with extreme curves, but instead rendering a bit more subtle. The approach taken by Enfuse ('exposure blending') is usually better than HDR, it's relatively easy in Photoshop as well. If you already have Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, you might want to experiment with that first.<br>

I do not use it often, though, as the shadow/highlight recovery in CaptureOne usually satisfies my needs.</p>

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<p>Lightroom 6 uses photo merge to create HDR images.http://www.lightroomqueen.com/whats-new-lightroom-cc-6-0/</p>

<p>(I would have used a link to Adobe but it is getting devilish hard to find anything directly on their site.)</p>

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