HDR

[daniel voges]

Hi, I am using Photoshop CS2 at the moment for HDR, just want ask, is Photomatix worth it or is Photoshop good enough for creating HDR images.

[michaelbiondo]

I use Photomatrix quite a bit and I like it. I find the tone mapping interface a bit more userfriendly, and the exposure blending can be helpful as well but the real advantage is in it's batch processing capability.

[rdonson]

For me there's no comparison.  HDR in Photoshop simply doesn't produce the results I'm looking for.  Photomatix is far easier to use and does the job.

[Ken Bennett]

Yes, for me, Photomatix was worth the cost.

[Tim Gray]

In my view Photoshop is a non starter for HDR, and I use Photomatix, however, I'm finding that the enfuse plug in for lightroom provides a more natural looking blend, but with significant processing overhead.  (but it's available for a modest donation).

[bill t.]

In my view Photoshop is a non starter for HDR, and I use Photomatix, however, I'm finding that the enfuse plug in for lightroom provides a more natural looking blend, but with significant processing overhead.  (but it's available for a modest donation).

There is a variation on Enfuse called Tufuse which offers a graphical user interface and considerably more control than the original Enfuse program.  As Tim says both those programs produce a very natural looking result without the heavy saturation and noise that is typical of Photomatix.  Tufuse is a stand-alone program, and BTW there is also a stand-alone version of Enfuse.

Photomatix does do a better job than Enfuse/Tufuse on blown-out prone areas like brilliant skies, windows etc and sometimes there is some advantage to using in those types of situations especially if you are in a hurry.  But with some masking and a dark exposure layer you can still get a better result with Enfuse/Tufuse with only a little more work.

If you are doing any sort of stitching Tufuse is by far the best choice since it produces excellent frame to frame consistency whereas Photomatix seems to apply different heuristics to each frame, which makes your exposure set harder to balance out.

http://www.tawbaware.com/tufuse.htm