Photomatix Pro 3.2Beta5

Photomatix Pro 3.2Beta5 is a useful tool which can recover highlights and shadows details of a high-contrast scene.

Using advanced algorithms, Photomatix Pro combines differently exposed shots into one image with increased dynamic range.

• Blend exposures hassle-free
• Generate an HDR image from multiple exposures
• Reveal details in highlights and shadows in HDR image

Designed for professional photographers and advanced amateurs, Photomatix Pro is a standalone application offering two methods of tone mapping, six methods of exposure blending, an alignment tool for out-of-register images, 16-bit support, and batch processing.

Major Features:

1. HDR / Tone Mapping
   • Generation of HDR (High Dynamic Range) images from differently exposed images
   • • Option for automatic image alignment. Two alignment methods are available.
     • Option for reducing ghosting artifacts in two different cases: one for ghosting due to moving objects, the other for ghosting artifacts due to background movements.
     • Option for automatic reduction of chromatic aberrations.
     • Option for automatic reduction of noise.
     • Reading of exposure information from Exif data.
     • Source images can be either 8 bits/channel or 16 bits/channel images, or RAW files from several camera models as well as DNG files.
     • In the case of RAW files, White Balance and output color space can be adjusted.
   • Conversion of single RAW file into pseudo-HDR image
   • • Enables to apply the Tone Mapping tool to single RAW file.
     • White Balance can be adjusted in Preferences.
   • Tone Mapping tool for revealing highlights and shadows details in HDR image
   • • Two tone mapping methods available: Details Enhancer, based on a local operator, and Tone Compressor, based on a global operator.
     • Preview enabling to adjust the following settings for Details Enhancer: Strength, Color Saturation, Light Smoothing, Luminosity, Gamma, Black and White Point, Color Temperature, Saturation Highlights, Saturation Shadows, Microcontrast, Micro-smoothing, Highlights Smoothing, Shadows Smoothing and Shadows Clipping.
     • For Tone Compressor the settings are: Brightness, Tonal Range Compression, Contrast Adaptation, Black and White Point, Color Temperature and Color Saturation.
     • Settings can be saved as Presets for quick access, or saved to and loaded from XMP files
     • Loupe to get a crop at 100% resolution.
     • Option for different preview sizes (small, medium, large and fit)
     • Undo and redo buttons for the settings done.
     • Output image is in 16 bits/channel mode, with the option to save it as 8 bits/channel jpeg or tiff, if desired
     • In the case of Details Enhancer, input image can also be a 16 bits/channel image file.
     • Option for output as equirectangular image set to be viewed in a 360 degree panorama viewer in the case of Details Enhancer.
     • Tone Mapping can be undone.
   • HDR Viewer shows local HDR image data at the appropriate exposure
   • Display of HDR Histogram (logarithmic)
   • Ability to batch tone map single HDR images.
   • Function to tone map large HDR image files while benefiting from a preview.
   • Read and Write support for Radiance RGBE (.hdr), OpenEXR (.exr) and Floating Point TIFF
   • Color managed HDR workflow: passing trough of ICC color profiles from the source to the tone mapped images, and color managed display.    
2. Exposure Blending/Fusion
   • Four algorithms for Exposure Blending: Highlights & Shadows - 2 images, Highlights & Shadows - Auto, Highlights & Shadows - Adjust, and Highlights & Shadows - Intensive
   • Automatic alignment option for hand-held images with two alignment methods available
   • Preview and Loupe available for all Exposure Blending methods.
   • Ability to select the images for method 'H&S - 2 images'
   • • Settings for method H&S - Adjust are: Accentuation, Blending Point, Shadows, Color Saturation, White Clip, Black Clip, Midtones and 360 degree image.    
3. Automatic Batch Processing
   • Automatically loads and processes images of the specified input location, and saves resulting images to the specified output location
   • Works for HDR generation, Tone Mapping and exposure blending
   • Strip processing option to generate an HDR image from large TIFF files without exceeding available RAM.
   • Ability to set the Exposure Value spacing for HDR image generation
   • Processes all sets of bracketed images stored under a given folder (number of bracketed images in each set specified by user before running the batch)
   • Ability to process all sub-folders of a given folder, combining all image files stored under each sub-folder
   • Options for naming the the resulting image files.   
4. General
   • Support of the following image file formats: JPEG (read & write), TIFF 24-bit, 48-bit and Floating Point (read & write), Radiance RGBE (read & write), OpenEXR (read & write), PNG (Mac version: read & write), PSD (read only) RAW files from several camera models, as well as DNG files (read only)
   • Basic image operation tools
   • • Cropping (also works with HDR images)
     • Resizing (also works with HDR images)
     • Rotating (also works with HDR images)
     • Sharpening
     • Brightness & Contrast
     • Remapping of mirror ball (also works with HDR images)
   • Includes Lightroom Export Plugin to Photomatix Pro
   • • HDR processing settings are selected directly in the Lightroom plug-in
     • Option to automatically save the resulting tone mapped or blended image and re-import it into the Lightroom library