Zuiun

If you use Photomatix, you can get away with a couple of "Poor man's HDR" effects. The HDR process is actually two stages: The first is the combining of several differently exposed shots to create a high dynamic range image. This image is, essentially, useless as a photo because it contains too much information for screen or print -- so it just looks terrible. The second step is Tone Mapping, which applies selective tone ranges throughout the image to create something viewable.

Because a RAW file contains more information than a standard image file, Photomatix can tone map a RAW file to create a wider dynamic range. A more manual way of doing it would be to save out several copies of the RAW file, each with over or under exposure compensation (most RAW processing software will let you adjust exposure).

This is extremely handy for being able to get an HDR-like image from an action/people shot because it only requires you to use one RAW file. However, it is not a true high dynamic range image, and using a single file tends to amplify the noise in the image.


I'm using 2.2.2 -- I probably should upgrade, but I'm kind of used to the controls of this version and they changed a few things around in the latest upgrade.

As for RAW processing, there are a number of things you can do. With Photomatix, you can batch process the RAW images. Or you can convert the RAWs into a more standard format (I convert them to TIFF rather than JPEG, because TIFF is lossless).

If I'm shooting in really low light, and therefore require a high ISO, I may process the images BEFORE using Photomatix -- running them through NoiseNinja or something to get rid of the ISO noise. It just depends.