Question about Photomatrix - Light or pro?

[reck]

I was thinking of getting Photomatrix to work with exr images in Terragen as it seems to make a big difference on what you can do with the image after it has rendered. I see on the site that they now do two versions, pro and light. Would the light version be sufficient do you think or is there something in the pro version that would warrant the increased price?

Also as my camera can do Exposure Bracketing I thought I could use Photomatrix for creating some hdr photos as well.

Edit: just seen on the comparison page that the light version doesn't read or write 32-bit HDR image formats, is this important? I must admit that I don't understand what a lot of the features mean so I'm hoping so one with a bit more knowledge than me can explain.

Here is a link to the comparison page.

http://www.hdrsoft.com/order/features_compare.html

[inkydigit]

Hi Reck, I cant say which one you should get as I have only tried the demo on my mac, some nice results though, as for bracketed exposure shots, I use PS cmd+opt+~ to create a selection based on the image luminosity, I then delete or (invert selection) delete, and merge the layered images together this way, it is pretty nifty!

[Oshyan]

Ideally you'd have a version that could read HDR images natively. The light version appears to only *create* such images by combining several LDR (low dynamic range, or "standard") images together, which is what you'll be doing with camera bracketing. TG2 renders in HDR natively, so if you output to EXR, you maintain all the data that's already there. It's best to have an image editor that can work on this data natively.

Incidentally the latest Photoshop (CS5) also appears to have some rather nice HDR and tone mapping functionality, though of course it's way more expensive.

- Oshyan

[penang]

Incidentally the latest Photoshop (CS5) also appears to have some rather nice HDR and tone mapping functionality, though of course it's way more expensive.

- Oshyan

There is a page comparing PS CS5 to Photomatrix : http://www.hdrsoft.com/images/cs5/comparison.html

[reck]

Ideally you'd have a version that could read HDR images natively. The light version appears to only *create* such images by combining several LDR (low dynamic range, or "standard") images together, which is what you'll be doing with camera bracketing. TG2 renders in HDR natively, so if you output to EXR, you maintain all the data that's already there. It's best to have an image editor that can work on this data natively.

So if I got the light version i'd have to render multiple "standard" images from Terragen with different exposure settings and then create a hdr image from these? If I got the pro version I could save the exr image straight out and use that?

Looking at the image created by Ladana in this thread (http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=9374.0) it actually looks like you get better results by not using exr images and instead render multiple standard images from Terragen and combine them in Photomatrix, so by using this method the light version would suffice.

Thanks for your thoughts.

[domdib]

Or, save out to EXR and then make multiple different exposures from that one file? And then make the HDR file in Light.

Ladana's method does seem better, but the downside is multiple renders are required, with all the time that would consume.