Camera Labs

Does anyone know of any open source or freeware equivalents to Photomatix which will do the job? Or should I just buy it?

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Olympus E-510 | ED 14-42mm 1:3.5-5.6 | ED 40-150mm 1:4.0-5.6 | 35mm 1:3.5 Macro | Giottos MTL8361B & MH-5001 3-way head | Lowepro Orion Trekker II bag

http://www.calummacnab.com

I dont think there are mate. Photoshop does it, after a fashion, but the results are generally poor. Yo9u could try out the demo of Artizen (link below), I know some people think it's superior to Photomatix.

http://www.supportingcomputers.net/

If you are looking for free editing software most manufacturers are linked to on the site below, a handy bookmark to have.

http://www.supportingcomputers.net/

Zorro

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http://zorrofox4.deviantart.com/



Various lenses, SB800 & Manfrotto 190 with 460MG head

Hi Cal,

The Gimp can do a great job of merging photos together. There is another thread here at Camera labs that is discussing this very question.

There are two things in my opinion that Photomatix does so well and what justifies the $100 . First is Tone Mapping. I have not come across a program that works as well as Photomatix in blending light while giving a user so much control. The second thing is speed, I can knock out a whole lot images and get back to other work.

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Jim Hawksworth Flickr
Canon 30D | EF 17-40 f/4L | EF 70-200 f/4L USM | EF 50 f/1.8 II | 580EX II | Berleback 2420 Tripod | and other various tools

Take a look at http://qtpfsgui.sourceforge.net/

Slapo!! Thank you VERY MUCH!! I had no idea about this one.
I installed this on my linux box and wow it works very well. (there is a windows and mac version as well)
There are A LOT of options, especially in the tone mapping department.

Below are two merges of the same three images of a lantern shot at +2 EV, 0 EV,-2 EV.

This merge made with qtpfsgui 1.9.0, and tonemapped with Reinhard '05 settings. Gamma adjusted. All other settings left alone.



Same three images merged and tonemapped with Photomatix

Similar results, with a bit of gamma adjusted to match.



A lot can be tweaked as far as gamma, color saturation etc. in both programs, although qtpfsgui appears to have a lot more options to tweak.

Thank you very much for posting this Slapo. I will be playing around with this a lot.
Good times!

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Jim Hawksworth Flickr
Canon 30D | EF 17-40 f/4L | EF 70-200 f/4L USM | EF 50 f/1.8 II | 580EX II | Berleback 2420 Tripod | and other various tools

You're welcome, Jim Hawksworth

I blend my shots in the GIMP.

Btw., what systems do you administer?
I've been thinking of taking the Solaris admin exams (which I'd have to study for), but for servers, FreeBSD is very appealing. Linux not that much due to sudden changes in the 2.6 series that sometimes occur (not that one has to upgrade the kernel each time a new one comes out, but unless your distribution issues patches without upgrading to a newer version, you might need to).
That said, I'm more of a coder than a sysadmin, even though I've been made to do both.