In reply to Kevin Walker.

Hi Kevin,

Manchester? Isn’t Chester somewhat close to Manchester? I am going to exhibit at Chester Art Fair in November. Me and my wife (she’s shooting photos too) plan on shooting some photos in Chester. It looks just like my kind of “photo opportunity”.

I do some processing in Lightroom before going to Photomatix, but I rarely do the “HDR” processing in Lightroom (highlights: -100, shadows: +100, whites and black adjustments), before taking the images to Photomatix. Why? Because it makes the output from Photomatix TOO strong. Sometimes, it can add that extra element, but I only do it in rare cases. You might want to read this article: https://caughtinpixels.com/chicago-the-day-after-sct-patricks-day/.

So what do I do normally? I might adjust white balance, in particular for city night shots. You can have a look at this article too: https://caughtinpixels.com/cold-evening-at-the-bean/. BTW: It’s random that both images are shot in Chicago.

I might also do the correct lens distortion, if the lines are crooked (which they will be in architectural photos), and I will definitely check the Remove Chromatic aberrations.

I might do a noise reduction also, if the photo gives noise problems in Photomatix. But this is something I only do, if necessary. And how do I determine that? If I find the noise levels too high, in Photomatix, I go back to Lightroom, and increase the noise reduction.

But the most important step in my workflow, is to blend the output from Photomatix, with other versions of the image. The other versions could ‘just’ be the original 3, 5 or 7 shots. I might process other versions in Lightroom, I also add to my pool of “images to blend”. I might have somewhere between 4 (1 Photomatix, 3 originals) and 10+ images (1 or 2 Photomatix, 7 originals, 1 or 2 two processed images from Lightroom). The image pool I load into Photoshop (or Gimp, if you don’t have Photoshop) and then I blend all layers into a final image. And I do this by masking the layers. And this is the single most important step in the processing workflow.

This is very important because it is in this step, you take out the nasty effects from Photomatix, and keep cool effects in. It takes a little practice, but when mastered, it’s a really simple process, and it is this step that makes the difference.

It does take longer, than just using Lightroom, but you can tell the difference. But I would rather make fewer images of a higher quality, than many of a lower quality.

–Jacob

In reply to Jacob Surland.

Thanks Jacob, I will definitely give that a try regarding the sliders. Yeah I shoot on Aperture priority with 3 captures of under-exposed, a normally exposed and an over exposed image with -2 & +2. I tend to start off in Lightroom first and do my normal work-flow in bringing down the highlights and increasing the shadows and working on the Black & White balance before reducing the noise on all 3 pictures by 40%. Last thing I do before I send into Photmatix is enable Lens correction and remove Chromatic Aberration.

Is this something you would do yourself? Or I’m I best just to go right into Photomatix?

Jacob, I’m going to wreck your head with questions so I really hope you don’t mind, your web page is full of good information and I’m having a meeting shortly with some of the other guys from around Manchester on Flickr and I’m going to recommend they look at your site…

Thanks again

Kevin

In reply to Kevin Walker.

Hi Kevin,

Thank you so much for your kind feedback. Please forward questions – I find it very inspirering to answer questions.

Halos and skies are definitely some of the hard parts in HDR photos. What I often end up doing, is including more or less a complete sky from one of my photos. Do you shoot 3 shots? The only way to mix this properly is by doing it in layers in Photoshop or Gimp. You can only very rarely get a final shot out of Photomatix. I am not sure I ever got one. But quite often, I only have to fix smaller parts, like the sky.

Some of the sliders are worse than others in generating Halos. And some prevent them. Try using the Highlights slider and the Micro smoothing, they provide preventive opportunities.

–Jacob

Massive thanks Jacob, Halos are a massive problem for me as I use HDR all the time. I always seem to get them around the top of building where they reach the sky and they are annoying, so I will give your solution a try….. The only problem I see is in HDR photos you would see that the sky does not match the rest of the HDR look? But I can also see that it depends on how good you at processing the shot.

Many kind thanks Jacob, from a massive fan

Kevin

In reply to Rahul.

Thanks a lot Rhul – have a nice day 🙂

–Jacob

Brilliant Jacob. Sheer dedication for sharing the knowledge.

In reply to Janice Sullivan.

Thank you so much Janice – and you are most well. I am glad that you can use it 🙂

–Jacob

This is so detailed and perfect!! Thanks so much for taking the time to show us how you work. Cheers!