Photomatix upgrade and fall in Chicago in HDR

I purchased Photomatix several years ago, when I seriously started shooting HDR images and just couldn’t figure out how to process them in previous version of Photoshop. At the time, there was no serious competition to Photomatix, and everybody in HDR world was using this software. Meantime, the newer version of Photomatix came out, and since my old version and new CS5 worked just fine, I decided not to upgrade. It was tempting, of course, with new processes and presets and all. However, today when I wanted to process the recently shot HDR, the communication between Lightroom and Photomatix broke. Quite frustrated after several tries, I called my husband for help. “Help” suggested checking for updates. So I went to the website and was thrilled to see, that with my previous purchase, I can upgrade to the new Photomatix 4. Fantastic. Or so I thought ;). I loved the presets, but had hard time go from there to the effect I wanted. The software controls were a bit different, so it took me a while to figure out how to do the process in the similar manner I used to. Not enough time to spend learning now. But I am sure to look for the good tutorials soon. Any suggestions anybody?

A.Barlow says:

October 17, 2011 at 11:37 am

IMO trees and clouds are the hardest things to get right in HDR and have a tendency to look.. off. This is a really cool city scape with nice foreground. The trees look good too. The clouds on the top part look a bit dark and are mildly distracting, but that’s nature I think, you do what you can :)

Good job on this.

Izabela says:

October 18, 2011 at 6:54 am

I think what HDR does is to put what I would call “streaks of shadow” on some surfaces, otherwise rendered well lit. I see it on building or airplanes on many of my HDR images. And I think it might be the same with clouds, especially those dark ones, as on the right top corner. Maybe we look at it and subconsciously (or even consciously) notice shadows where it should not be. In this case, I think the clouds add to the atmosphere to the image, with the clearing sky up and puffy, colorful from the sunset clouds at the bottom.

Medieval chapel says:

November 14, 2011 at 9:28 am

[…] of the Photomatix. For a while, I was using almost exclusively CS5. Then I discovered that I am eligible for the upgrade to newer version of Photomatix. It not only solve my problem of lack of connection between […]