Photomatix

HDR Soft Photomatix Pro is a standalone program (there exists also a Photoshop plug-in version) creating High Dynamics Range images from a set of differently exposed shots. Photomatix easy interface and good quality makes it one of the most popular software dealing with hdr. This article takes a look at what and how the program can do.
Photomatix installation is a usual procedure with no hidden obstacles. It goes smooth and predictable. On the first launce you are offered a quick tutorial (very clear and to the point) and a user manual. Right there on the screen you get menu paths for generating, tone mapping and blending images.

But the first step of the workflow when you have a set of differently exposed images is the generation of an hdr image. The source images can be loaded directly through HDR > Generate menu or after opening them through File > Open command. The latter is not recommended as it takes a lot of memory and considerably slows down the process. Raw images cannot be opened directly either.
Options for creating an hdr image include aligning and reducing ghost artifacts, be these ripples or moving objects.

Aligning works fine in most cases. Sometimes though Photomatix cannot perform it and objects have double edges. Look at the rose image below.

For such complex cases Photomatix has Advanced aligning function. While automatic alignment is offered in the Generation dialogue, advanced alignment, be it automatic or semi-manual, works with already opened images. Semi-manual alignment window looks very much like the one in panorama making programs. Here you also set control points for the program.

The image I had could not be aligned automatically. The advanced automatic alignment produced a too blurred result. Semi-manual was more or less successful but only at a first glance. A close look revealed double edges in the objects on the periphery. The only recipe here – use tripod when shooting.

I didn’t test the reduction of ghost artifacts in ripples, having no decent photo with ripples in it, but could test what happens with moving objects and people.

While deactivated ghost reduction produces multiple ghostly figures in the image, the activated setting sweeps away ghosts but cannot produce entirely solid figures either. In my photos people acquired strangely looking cloth designs and some wholes with street looking through in them. As moving objects are not usually the main subjects of an hdr image, these blemishes can in most cases be corrected with an image editor without too much effort.

The resulted hdr image can be saved into hdr, exr, or tiff format for later viewing and/or editing in other applications. What the program shows after merging is usually a very dark image with a little hdr preview window, where a lighter version can be seen. You can also view an hdr histogram and even change a couple of parameters there. What should be noted – is the drastic difference between the bigger pseudo hdr and the preview that can show different pictures of the same spot in the bigger version. But as hdr needs tonal adaptation before being viewed through usual media, this feature is a natural.

Here we come to hdr conversion issues. Photomatix offers two tone mapping methods – Details Enhancer and Tone Compressor. How exactly the methods work is clearly explained in the tutorial.

Both modes have a number of parameters, including gamma, contrast, black and white points, saturation, brightness etc., quite enough to edit an image.

Detail enhancer usually produces darker images. The change of settings varies the effect. This method produces also less noise than the other one. The colors are not so bright.

The Tone Compressor images are usually quite bright with bright colors on the edge of artificiality. The resulted images also have a fair amount of noise, both chroma and luma with no noise reduction instruments accessible. The parameters set too high can produce halos around objects.

Converted images can be cropped and rotated. And, of course, saved to 8 (jpg, tiff, bmp) or 16 bit (tiff) formats.

Photomatix can not only generate hdrs from multiple photos but is capable of producing a pseudo hdr from a single raw file. Such image can also be tonemapped in a usual way.

Another option is blending of several images with different exposures. No hdr is produced here, just an average of exposures is taken to level shadow and highlights. The only accessible alignment for this procedure is the advanced alignment, by the way.

Finally, Photomatix offers a batch mode where you point a folder and the program generates and converts the images automatically.

The overall impression is that Photomatix is quite easy to use; it can produce good results rather quickly. Taking into account the moderate price it can be a good choice.

Photomatix Pro for Windows and Photomatix Pro for Mac OS are both available for download at $99. You can also purchase a Bundle  consisting of Photomatix Pro and Photomatix Tone-Mapping plug-in for $119 (Photomatix Bundle for Windows and Photomatix Bundle for Mac OS). There are fully functional trial versions with a watermark restriction.

To compare Photomatix to other hdr tools see HDR tools - Comparison and HDR tools - Rating articles.