Photomatix?

(eubanks01) · (eubanks01) **Join Date: Jun 2001** 05-01-2008, 6:44 AM

Does anyone have experience with or opinions on this software? I know you can do HDR in CS3, but I just have Elements 5.0.

I have seen some HDR examples in both and they look very similar.

(xtremebordgurl)

Photomatix does a far superior job than CS3, IMO. I'm not sure I would use photomatix for anyhithing else though...

(eubanks01) · (eubanks01) **Join Date: Jun 2001** 05-01-2008, 12:05 PM

Well, I really like to take landscape shots so I think having some HDR capability would be really cool. I'm just not sure how much I would really use it to justify the $100 cost...although I know in photography this is just a drop in the bucket!

(phantom5815) · (phantom5815) **Join Date: Jul 2002** 05-01-2008, 1:09 PM

actually PT Gui is better for both landscape and HDR than Photomatrix and CS3

(Walt) · (Walt) **Join Date: Jan 2003** 05-01-2008, 2:35 PM

Eubanks,
I have it and like it. If I'm doing a straight HDR I use PS2 but if I'm tone mapping then I use Photomatix.

You can do some really cool stuff with both.

There's a beta version that you can use for free too.

(phantom5815) · (phantom5815) **Join Date: Jul 2002** 05-01-2008, 3:12 PM

Here is the gallery for PT Gui
http://www.ptgui.com/gallery/

They also provide a free trial verson.

(Message edited by phantom5815 on May 01, 2008)

(schrunk) · (schrunk) **Join Date: Dec 2007** 05-04-2008, 7:46 AM

Hey Eubanks,

Personally either program will do the trick for you. I think photoshop cs3 throws out better results but it really comes back to what you input. If you throw a single JPEG into photomatix and have it "fake" HDR it will look better then in PSCS3. However if you lock off your shot, correctly do the RAW series of three, and correctly over/under/correctly expose it you will get better results out of CS3.

Either way HDR is a little bit of a fad I personally think, its pretty cool what you can do with landscapes but really I dont know if its worth buying a program just to do it. Listen to the guys above and grab a demo version somewhere and test it out first.