# Can LR now make Photomatix redundant ?



## spectric (Jul 6, 2015)

Hi everyone

Looking at getting back into landscape photography,  lost interest for a while and now currently updating and renewing software.  Always used to use Photomatix for blending multiple images taken with a range of EV's into a single image, in your oppinion can LR now out perform  HDRsoftware or is it still the best option for blending a range of bracketed images ?


               thanks Roy


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## Ian.B (Jul 6, 2015)

not yet if what I read is correct; early days for LR hdr/pano.

Scot Kelby said he got the better hdr in LR by using the -2 and +2 file only (??)

I have not seen enough in LR6 to upgrade; CC could be better but I will not be in any hurry to remove efex hdr and Microsoft ICE (panos)


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## Jimmsp (Jul 6, 2015)

spectric said:


> Hi everyone
> 
> Looking at getting back into landscape photography,  lost interest for a while and now currently updating and renewing software.  Always used to use Photomatix for blending multiple images taken with a range of EV's into a single image, in your oppinion can LR now out perform  HDRsoftware or is it still the best option for blending a range of bracketed images ?
> 
> ...



First, I don't take a lot of bracketed shots for HDR images. However, I have processed the few that I have recently taken (and a few older ones) with LR and with Photomatix (PM). IMO, if you are after a very realistic image with extended dynamic range, LR does a very good job. I really like that I get a raw .dng file out of the process which you can then process normally in LR. If you are looking for something with a bit more "flash" or even up to the so called grunge look, then PM is still the right package. PM will still get a very nice "spiced up" realistic look pretty quickly. 

PM is faster than LR; but LR will most likely progress as time moves on.


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## LouieSherwin (Jul 6, 2015)

Hi,

I agree with Jim. The HDR merge in Lightroom is very good. I find it a lot easier to get a clean natural look than with Nik HDR Efex Pro which I have use for several years. I have several new images published on my website in the Redwood NP gallery which you would be hard pressed to tell that they were HDR captures. So if that is what you want then the new Lightroom HDR merge is great. However, if you like the popular "HDR grunge" then you will want to keep your other tools around.

-louie


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## Woodbutcher (Jul 6, 2015)

LR HDR is very natural looking.  If you like lots of control on how the HDR effect is then you still need a 3rd party product.  I like mine to be more natural looking so I'm fairly happy with LR.


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## Ian.B (Jul 8, 2015)

LouieSherwin said:


> Hi,
> 
> I agree with Jim. The HDR merge in Lightroom is very good. I find it a lot easier to get a clean natural look than with Nik HDR Efex Pro which I have use for several years. I have several new images published on my website in the Redwood NP gallery which *you would be hard pressed to tell that they were HDR captures.* So if that is what you want then the new Lightroom HDR merge is great. However, if you like the popular "HDR grunge" then you will want to keep your other tools around.
> 
> -louie


that is always the end result I'm look for also. Good to hear positive comments about LR HDR/Panos


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## Johan Elzenga (Jul 8, 2015)

I agree that LR HDR merge is very good indeed, except for images that need deghosting. I've found that deghosting often (although not always) creates a lot of noise in the deghosted area. And because you cannot manually pick the image that is used for deghosting (like you can in Photoshop HDR Pro), there is no way to influence that. So sometimes I use Photoshop to merge the images, just so that I can deghost manually. I keep the image in 32 bits and bring it back into Lightroom, so I can still use Lightroom for further tone mapping.


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## pknight (Jul 9, 2015)

Ian.B said:


> Scot Kelby said he got the better hdr in LR by using the -2 and +2 file only (??)



Victoria Brampton, in her Lightroom Queen blog, said the same thing.  However, in experimenting with this I found that there was noticeably greater noise in the midtones of an HDR image when the base (EV 0) image was not used.  The shadows and highlights were equivalent to the three-image HDR result, but since the program is going to have to pull the detail for midtones from the underexposed image if you only have two exposures, it is not surprising that there is noise.  The amount of noise would be dependent on the ISO and camera combination, but it just seems easier to me to include all of the exposures and not temp fate.


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## tspear (Jul 9, 2015)

So far it has been a mixed result for me. I have only done a few since I am just starting to learn HDR, but sometimes Lr seems to do better when I select all 3, 5, or 7 raw images, or just the one or two extremes. I have not found a pattern yet for which works the best; so for now I just try a few combinations and see what I send up with.

Tim


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