photomatix elements plugin

[skip_wilson]

am interested in hearing peoples' experiences with Photomax Elements. I have Photoshop Elements 11 with Windows 7 Professional on a Dell Optiflex 7010 64 bit OS with 8GB of RAM. I would get the Photomatix Essentials plugin for PSE 11. Do people like what it offers in features and with simplicity or do I go to Photomax Pro? I shoot RAW along with fine quality JPEG's. Is there a significant learning curve with the Pro over the Elements version of Photomatix? Thank you. Skip Wilson

[Ed_Ingold]

I use Photomatix Pro, and have not tried Photomatix Elements. I use it as a stand-alone, or more often as a Lightroom plugin, generally starting with the raw images.

 

The learning curve is very easy. While there are many ways to fine tune the results, there are a dozen or so templates which give instant previews of the output. Photomatix doesn't save the actual 32 bit HDR file, just the results in TIFF or JPEG format (maybe others). Among the options are tripod v hand held. Using the automatic bracketing option in the camera, you can shoot a string of 3 to 9 (always an odd number) in a second or two. Even though the camera shifts a little, Photomatix automatically aligns the images and crops the results.

 

Edited March 29, 2017 by Ed_Ingold

[Wouter Willemse]

I occassionally use Photomatix Essentials 4.0, but not as a plug-in. As a standalone tool, it works fine. It's quite a bit simpler from the Pro version, but it can achieve good results, and especially by default it doesn't give the overcooked results, but rather more sublte HDR. For my needs it's sufficient, but I use HDR very sparingly so I may not be the best reference. From a trial I did with Photomatix Pro, I'd say the learning curve with the Essentials version is quite a bit gentler.

 

The Essentials 4.0 version has beeen available for free (legit!) frequently on sites or with magazines as a promotional offer. So it may be worth googling for it to see if such an offer is currently available. For sure, there have been links on this forum too. That way, you've got little to lose and if you really like the application, getting the pro version always remains an option.

 

Another option, equally free, would be the Google Nik plug-in collection, but if I am not mistaken, the HDR plug-in does not work with PS Elements. Not sure, though, so worth checking too.

Edited March 29, 2017 by Wouter Willemse

[skip_wilson]

Thank you for responses. I have not found any free versions of Photomatix Elements but won't be hurt financially for $39 if I do decide to get it. I have loaded the trial version now. You are right, Wouter, Google Nik's HDR version of the plug-in is HDR Efex Pro, and it isn't available when I load up Nik into my PSE 11. Nik's Vivenza 2 is and I love it for other aspects of editing before using the Elements expert editing function. Thanks.