HDR with Photomatix: The “More” and “Advanced” Detail Enhancer Options
HDR with Photomatix: The “More” and “Advanced” Detail Enhancer Options
You know what the basic sliders in Photomatix do, but what about the “More Options” and “Advanced Options” sliders? Below is a breakdown of those sliders. If you’re looking for a full HDR Tutorial, click here to read my detailed tutorial on using Photomatix for HDR.
- Smooth Highlights: reduces contrast enhancement in the image’s highlights. Drag this slider to the right if you’re seeing halos in your images.
- White Point: moving this slider to the right increases global contrast. Moving it to the left decreases highlight clipping. This is handy when your clouds look blown out.
- Black Point: This slider helps set the image’s black point. Moving it to the left reduces shadow clipping.
- Gamma: adjusts mid-tones and has the effect of brightening the image when dragged to the right.
- Temperature: adjusts the color temperature. Moving this slider to the right gives the image a yellower tone while moving it to the left gives the images a bluer tone.
The Advanced Options:
- Micro-smoothing: smoothes the enhancement of small details. Moving this slider to the right can help reduce noise in the sky.
- Saturation Highlights: does exactly what it says: controls saturation in the highlights.
- Saturation Shadows: another slider that does exactly what it says: affects saturation in the shadows.
- Shadows Smoothness: reduces contrast in the shadows. Dragging this slider to the right has the practical effect of decreasing the “brightness” in the shadow areas.
- Shadows Clipping: clips shadows to black. Slide this to the right to make shadow areas black.
