Product Reviews

Last issue, we lamented Hydra's lack of tone mapping tools, which enable you to stretch the tones and luminance of HDR images to create an artificially-wide gamut. Their absence made this otherwise fine HDR renderer feel like a job half done.

Photomatix Pro 3, on the other hand, does both. It will combine multiple exposures of a single scene to create an image with increased dynamic range - as Hydra does - and then tone map the results. Better still, it can create pseudo-HDR images from a single frame, and allow you to tone map these, too. The results are the kind of pictures you'll see when you search Flickr on the term HDRI.

Version two was an accomplished application already, but it wasn't always friendly to use. It's a relief then, to see that the first obvious change in this third edition is the improved user interface. Version 2's ugly 'overview' window, which did nothing but dole out instructions, has been replaced by handy workflow shortcuts that give you one-click access to generating HDR images, tone mapping, exposure blending and batch processing. The

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editing environment has been improved too, and pictures that are too big for the screen are handled much better.

If you'd rather not use the application as a standalone entity, then you could instead opt for the Photoshop plug-in edition, to supplement Adobe's own built-in HDR compositing tools.

Successful tone mapping requires as much restraint as skill, as it's easy to take things too far. However, Photomatix rewards careful experimentation, as can be seen from the results shown here. The composite HDR image of the barn is made using three exposures at 0, -2 and +1 EV, and then mapped to balance out the tones by boosting both the shadows and highlights.

The car on the causeway is created by tone mapping a single image, not an HDR shot, and increasing the micro contrast to heighten the edges between contrasting tones, and reducing the level of smoothing. The result is a perceived increase in the amount of detail in the shot. Each job was completed in less than 20 minutes which, with practice, we would expect to shorten.

The trouble is, the process is just too addictive. You can spend hours making small tweaks, or simply playing with the various settings to see what affect they will have on the finished product. All the while though, it's important to keep in the back of your mind that although the results can be spectacular, you rarely want them to be entirely obvious and unbelievable.

If you are serious about tone mapping your HDR images, there are several options on the market, but for our money Photomatix Pro remains one of the best, and easiest to use. If you don't believe us, download the free trial and see for yourself.