We recently held an HDR Hangout to help you get started. Our guest on the program was Blake Rudis of EverydayHDR. Blake is a fine artist who fell in love with HDR photography. He combines his understanding of light and form to make some powerful images.
Here’s a followup guest tutorial from Blake. We hope you enjoy and be sure to give Photomatix Pro a try.
5 HDR Tips for Photomatix Pro 5.0
- Presets are not always the best option. Dynamic Range changes drastically from one image to the next. A preset can be used as a baseline, but very rarely do they make a one and done image.
- The Lighting Effects Mode is not nearly as powerful as the Lighting Adjustments Slider. Lets face it, having 11 increments (and more) on one slider is more forgiving than 5 quick adjustments (Natural, Natural+, Medium, Surreal, and Surreal+). I have never met an HDR image that deserved a Surreal+ slap in the face!
- Working From Top to Bottom is the best idea when tone mapping an image. Usually I keep the top the same at all times, 100, 50, 10, 10. Then I work my way down paying the most attention to the Lighting Adjustments and the Highlight Smoothness.
- Over saturating in Photomatix Pro with the Saturation slider is always a BAD idea! There are so many tools for saturation after Photomatix. It is not a good idea to over-saturate in Photomatix because you do not have any control over the colors that are being manipulated.
- Photomatix Pro should be looked at as a Means to an End, Not the End All Be All!!! You wouldn’t build a bench with just a hammer, why would a photograph be any different? Use the tools you have to craft your images and don’t look at any one tool as the end all be all!