McGillveray Studios

The previous post I did the pictures  with Essential HDR and this is an older picture done with Photomatix 3. The image alignment is much improved in Photomatix 3 over version 2 and works very well. This was done in Exposure Blending mode, which is a lot like Fast Tone Balancer in Essential HDR. Photomatix has more sliders and options for tonemapping, but Essential HDR is simple. Essential HDR claims it produces less artifacts in smooth and out of focus areas. I know that this a bit unfair as this pic is vertical and the others are horizontal, but I like this older pic. I have other small HDR Photomatix pics in a previous post. Then there are Essential HDR examples in this post. Which is better? I really don’t know. What do you think?

This photo was taken with a Cannon 5D 70-200L IS UCM with -2, 0, +2 f/stops on a tripod.

Vancouver at Dusk

Well here I am in Vancouver. I just did this pic of the harbor with 7 exposures, 1 stop apart each (-3, -2,-1, 0, +1, +2, +3) and exposure blended in Photomatix 3 Beta 14. More to come. It is late now and time for a night cap and bed. I get to pick up my daughter at the airport tomorrow coming back from Thailand!

Vancouver at Dusk 2

The next morning – waiting to get my daughter, I worked on a couple more shots of the harbor and here they are. The second one was taken earlier in the evening so I only used 3 exposures. (-2, 0, +2 stops). Both done in Photomatix Beta 3.

Vancouver at Dusk 3

Big Sky Country

This week I took a week off work and stayed home and relaxed. I worked on this site a lot to get it going for the new year. It has been cold -20 C most of the time, better for staying inside. I took this shot yesterday, the fog and cold were mixing together. I used Photoshop to create the HDR file and Photomatix to tone map it.

Another Big Sky Country

This one I used Photomatix 3 Beta to produce the HDR file and tone mapping. Both Photoshop and Photomatix 2.5 could not line up all the branches, but Photomatix 3 did! Can we line up the layers manually in Photoshop and make a HDR file out of that anyone?

By the way I was hand holding my camera and shooting at 6.5 fps.

Peace River - Alwin Holland Campground

Photomatix released a beta of their next revision. Photomatix is a High Dynamic Range image creator that is easy to use. The camera cannot capture the entire dynamic range of most scenes taken in sunlight, at sunset, night scenes, etc. With HDR images you take a series of pics, -2 stops, proper exposure, and + 2 stops, and at least that many exposures. The frames are then layered, aligned, by the software, and then tone mapped to be able to view it and print it. Just another thing that is making digital photography very exciting. Link to Photomatix Pro 3 beta. Check the link weekly as that seems to be how often a new release is issued. Windows Mac Also here is the link to HDR Labs site. This is THE HDR site and has links to free HDR software including the free Picturenaut

The button for the tutorial in the beta program does not work so here is a Link to the Photomatix tutorial on their web site.

Here is a link to an article in Digital Outback Photo on using Photomatix 3 and the new Exposure Blending Mode.

Here is a link to an excellent tutorial on exposure bracketing for HDR images.

Update March 27, 2008 Photomatix 3.0 Released

There is no picture in the player. (still learning)