Photomatix edited images are available all over the web that highlight its capabilities. You can download and use the Software for as long as you like, but it adds a Photomatix branded watermark to all photos you edit. If you are unsure about purchasing Photomatix right away, a free trial version is also available. For students, the company offers a 60-75% discount based on one’s academic status. HDRsoft has a form on its website for submitting a version 6 user request after upgrading.
#Photomatix pro 4 pro#
But there is a fee of $29 for previous users to access the Pro version. Upgrading from version 5 to 6 is free, though. Plus, you can even share your license with someone else. On purchasing Photomatix, you get a single license that works on Mac, Windows, and several machines too. Get the Pro version if you need to use it as a Lightroom plugin. With the Photomatix Pro version, you also get the brand new HDR Batch Plugin for Lightroom. Its Essentials’ version retails at $39 and is limited to only five bracketed images per project, while Photomatix 6 Pro costs $99 on HDRsoft’s official website. Unfortunately, Photomatix 6 Pro is not available as freeware. Commissions do not affect our evaluations. Fortunately, I found an outstanding tutorial online at that helped me get the most out of Photomatix Pro.When you buy through links on our site, we may earn a commission at no cost to you.
#Photomatix pro 4 manual#
I knocked the app down a half a star because the interface is kinda clunky and fugly (the dev should just copy Lightroom's interface), and because the user manual does not help at all to explain the basic concepts of tone-mapping, fusion merging and deghosting (it simply explains what each slider and adjustment does). Exposure merging is a bonus feature in Photomatix Pro that isn't included in most other HDR apps. I have not yet used any of the Exposure Fusion options (these are not HDR - they simply merge multiple exposures, which is useful for night photography, for example). I plan to create a few of my own presets as there aren't that many built-in presets that provide a natural or realistic looking result. My approach is to find a preset that provides a reasonable result and tweak the settings from there. I have used both the Contrast Optimizer and Detail Enhancer tone-mapping methods with good results. The raw file conversion in Photomatix Pro is okay, but even the dev admits it is not as good as Lightroom/ACR or other high-end raw converters.
#Photomatix pro 4 how to#
I export images from Lightroom using the plugin supplied with Photomatix Pro (if you use ProPhoto RGB in Lightroom, check the dev's website for instructions as to how to preserve this colour profile on export). The selective deghosting feature in Photomatix Pro also works very well, better than any automatic deghosting methods that I tried. Photomatix Pro did as well as Photoshop CC (which is supposedly the best at aligning images), and better than other HDR apps, including one that makes a big deal about its ability to align handheld images. I mostly shoot sequences of 3 and 5 images handheld, so auto alignment is a critical feature. It produced the best results, offers the most features and was the easiest to use (after some learning time). I tried several HDR apps (and the Merge to HDR Pro feature in Photoshop CC) before deciding to buy Photomatix Pro.