best hdr software

Andy77

Andy77

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Looking to buy some hdr software as ive never tried this topic of photography before, so could anyone advise some good hdr software for me to purchase?

Andy
 
I use Photomatix

Its great as makes it all from one RAW image, you don't have to bracket anything.
 
saxk said:
Its great as makes it all from one RAW image, you don't have to bracket anything.
Click to expand...

Then your not making true HDRS then, your making pseudo HDRs, of course you have to bracket your shots for true HDRs

I use Photomatix and Picturenaut I find good and its free Clicky linky
 
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Also ... its going and getting the shots right at the very start that will dictate the main outcome. All the software in the world wont help bad setup or exposures.

I use Photomatix ... but i cant save my rushed shots or bad exposures. It mocks them and blows my sky out. Stupid Photomatix :)
 
Photomatix is about the best once you get used to it IMHO, but I am seeing a number of issues posted on the net with the latest version, although I personally havent had any probelms with it.
Wayne
 
To begin with I am very new to HDR so this is based on my limited experience.
I've just been give a free copy of photomatix pro by the very nice people at Photomatix and it works great. I've also just bought Oloneo as well so I'm currently trying to compare them.

I tried them both out on an HDR of the Natural History Museum which had huge crowds so it was quite a test for how they handle ghosting. Photomatix clearly handled the ghosting of the crowds way better than Oloneo did. so If you are going to be doing HDR's of scenes with the potential for lots of ghosting I'd recommend Photomatix.

Oloneo though is in my opinion much more user friendly I particularly like the ability to adjust the Hue Saturation and Luminence of individual colours. Oloneo also has the re-light feature which could be very useful for certain genres such as interior architectural photos and still lifes etc.
I have an example of one of my first attempts with Oloneo here http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=336631
I should add that this image was also imported into Photoshop for some final tweeking.

Your best bet though is to get trial versions and give them a go.
 
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madmatt said:
HDR efex pro is fantastic if you have photoshop. Can download a free 15 day trial to.
Click to expand...

I had no end of probems with it, just getting it to work at took ages them when it did work it was painfully slow on my good spec computer.
 
Just Dave said:
Then your not making true HDRS then, your making pseudo HDRs, of course you have to bracket your shots for true HDRs

I use Photomatix and Picturenaut I find good and its free Clicky linky
Click to expand...

You use the same software.

i meant it brackets for you, you dont have to make them separate in PS. or am i missing a deeper meaning here ?
 
Take 3 shots exposed differenty, then the software combines them for you.
Dont take 1 shot and let the software turn it into 3 and then rejoin them back into 1... Works but nowhere near as well as 3 seperate shots.

Canon have AEB (auto exposure bracketing) that will let you get the 3 shots easily.
Nikon have similar (not sure what its called)

Sam
 
i always used to take one shot in raw and make the brackets on PS, so thats not as good ?
 
saxk said:
i always used to take one shot in raw and make the brackets on PS, so thats not as good ?
Click to expand...

That is called 'Pseudo HDR'.

For true HDR a minimum of 3 images is required using AEB....+2, 0, -2.

D in W
 
cool, ill try this next time. thanks dave
 
I've just bought Nik's HDR Efex Pro. It worked straight from the download for me, even on my low-spec laptop, although Nik's Silver Efex Pro 2 freezes on me regularly. Nik seem to have more than their fair share of fairly random compatibility issues.

But HDR Efex is easy to use and gives nice results (although I've not used anything else to compare it with). Their website says they have four HDR engines which can be combined to give many alternative HDR treatments, so I find it easy enough to use their presets to find a good starting point. Then you can use their U-point system for local adjustments which is very helpful. The one-shot (pseudo HDR) capabilities are excellent too.
 
If you have photoshop and want to try out some tonemapping, I have the ReDynamix HDR Plugin on mine. You can download a free trial, and the watermarks are fairly unobtrusive when you're just playing about with it (which annoyed me with photomatix because I want to have a proper play before I buy).

It's far from the most powerful, and not true HDR software in the sense that you can only use one image (as long as you're using RAW you can get OK results), but it's unbelievably easy to use. Mostly because it doesn't have all the settings the others have, but it makes for a bit of fun.
 
I too use Dynamic HDR. Seems much easier to use than Photomatix. You can use one image to create a false HDR if you so wish. Suits me fine, but then i'm not looking for the way over the top overblown images.
 
I use Photomatix or Photoshop CS5.

CS5 is pretty easy to use. Highlight the 3 files (normal exp, under and over) click options > photoshop > merge to hdr pro

Photomatix is much easier still. Both are very good
 
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