photomatix

[mdmc]

I took 7 shots bracketing from -3 to +3, ran them through Photomatix and pp'ed the result of that and the middle image in PSE2 the same way,
auto levels, resized to 640 pixels wide and unsharp mask 150% .03 amount.
I havent purchased yet so theres a watermark.
What do you think?
Mark.

[Trevor Ash]

The original looks better. Avoid autolevels.

[Frog]

I can't tell which I like better..each has strengths.
I've never seen a beaver's house in a field before, though.

[mjs1973]

I like the first image better. The colors look a little too washed out in the FG of the second image. The second image shows the details in the BG trees better, but overall, I like the contrast and colors of the first image better.

[Mcphisto]

I got Photomatix Pro for free using Torrents. Also got the noise reducing program Neat Image... http://www.neatimage.com/ ... and Virtual photographer for CS2, all in one download. Of course I only did this to try them out. I have since deleted them and rushed out to buy the legal version! :wink5: :thumbsup: :aureola:

Edit: Also, I prefer the 2nd image, just because there is more detail and it looks more like the eye would see than the first.

[Photo-John]

Hope you don't mind that I moved this thread to the Digital Imaging forum. I think it's a better fit here.

I like the first image better, too. While I understand what you mean about the first one looking more like what we actually see, it looks harsh and overprocessed to me. I wouldn't use either one, as-is. The first one looks like it still has post-processing potential. But the second one just looks overdone.

[photophorous]

Maybe my monitor is out of calibration, but the second image looks much better to me. I agree that it's not perfect, and it looks a little over done, but I think if both of these had a little additional post processing done on them, the second one would win. To me, it appears slightly too contrasty and/or over-sharpened. But the first one looks underexposed in the foreground and needs a contrast boost, which would ruin the back ground. It's been a couple of months since I ran my spyder, so I could be off a little.

I think, if you haven't already, you should try this out with a few more images. Looks like it has potential to me.

Paul

[mdmc]

Interesting comments, thanks for the feedback.
I agree with all of you on this.
I was trying to give both pix simmilar pp but it's obvious
that one is overdone and one is underdone.
Trevor, good to see you posting again!
Frog, I was wondering what was putting all that stuff there!
Michael, yep. BTW youre pix and presetation are looking great!
Mcphisto, yep. I use noise ninja. It works.
PJ, this is where I should have posted, and yep.
Paul, I have a strong magenta cast but only in pse2. I tried to fix
it but decided to leave it before I made things worse.
Heres another shot I took a long time ago accidentaly in raw+jpeg

1, matix pped-2, ,jpeg no pp-3, matix no pp.
Thanks again,
Mark.

[mdmc]

I should be able to do this with capture, but that is difficult and slow.
Mark.