Posted by Phillip Noll on November 23, 2009 at 9:58 PM
A little warning for users of Photomatix and the Lightroom Plug-In
If your HDR and Exposure-Blended images from Photomatix come out with the correct color space--stop reading! If not, read on.....
I have been doing exposure blends for probably 6-7 years now (actually started with scanned film!) mostly by hand in Photoshop. It was painstakingly slow! So when programs started becoming available to do this for me I was excited. Photomatix seems to be the current leader of the pack in this area but I never really liked the “HDR” look for nature photography because to me it looks more like photo-art than photography. Thankfully, Photomatix has another option that used to be called “Exposure Blend” but is now called “Fuse Exposures”. This option produces nice exposure blends that look far more realistic than the HDR option. And now there is a Lightroom plug-in to make your life even easier---but beware!
I loaded Photomatix Pro and the Lightroom plug-in with no problems. I then went into Photomatix’s “Preferences” and set my output color space to ProPhoto RGB (same as Lightroom and Photoshop) and told it to create 16-bit tiff files. To get to the Photomatix plug-in from Lightroom I just clicked on File > Plug-in Extras > Export to Photomatix Pro and my images were sent into Photomatix for blending. Simple! But beware!
Then I went happily on my way blending all kinds of images and getting really great results! So good in fact that I rarely had to do any further tweaking in Lightroom or Photoshop. I probably blended 100s of images. Then one day I needed to do something to one of my blended tiffs in Photoshop. So, from Lightroom I clicked on Photo > Edit In > Photoshop. I usually choose the option to “Edit a Copy with Lightroom Adjustments” but since this was a blended tiff that had no additional Lightroom adjustments, I selected “Edit Original”. When the image opened up in Photoshop I got the color space mismatch dialog box! Huh? I set everything in Photomatix to ProPhoto RGB—same as my working space in Photoshop; why would I have a mismatch?
Well, it turns out that the Photomatix Lightroom plug-in creates a preset in the Lightroom Export dialog called “Photomatix Pro” and Lightroom uses that to export your files into Photomatix when you click on File > Plug-in Extras > Export to Photomatix Pro. This preset has Adobe RGB selected as the export color space. I tried to change this preset but to no avail. I also could not delete it or replace it. Perhaps there is a way to do so but it escapes me right now.
So I created a new preset called “Photomatix ProPhoto” with 16-bit tiff, ProPhoto RGB color space, export to Photomatix, and no compression selected. Now, when I want to do an exposure blend (or an HDR) I highlight my images in either the library (grid) or develop (film strip at the bottom) modules, click on File > Export > select my preset Photomatix ProPhoto > Export. Alternatively, I can click on File > Export with Preset > and select my new preset Photomatix ProPhoto. Now Lightroom exports the images using my preset and Photomatix does its thing and actually spits out a 16 bit tiff in the ProPhoto RGB color space and I am once again a happy camper! Except for the fact that I now have to re-blend 100s of images! Crikey!
Just thought I would pass this along to you Photomatix users. Perhaps you already knew about this and/or set up things correctly from the get-go. What can I say? I'm slow! Now back to your regularly scheduled program.
Posted by DKOSIUR on November 24, 2009 at 12:30 AM
Thanks for the warning and work-around. I haven't done that much with the Lightroom plug-in from Photomatix, but I had not noticed the change in color space because processed files never got sent back to PShop.
Good to know ...
Dave
Posted by Bill Brennan on November 24, 2009 at 9:42 AM
Thanks. Appreciate your taking time to share your experience.
Discussion
2 repliesIf your HDR and Exposure-Blended images from Photomatix come out with the correct color space--stop reading! If not, read on.....
I have been doing exposure blends for probably 6-7 years now (actually started with scanned film!) mostly by hand in Photoshop. It was painstakingly slow! So when programs started becoming available to do this for me I was excited. Photomatix seems to be the current leader of the pack in this area but I never really liked the “HDR” look for nature photography because to me it looks more like photo-art than photography. Thankfully, Photomatix has another option that used to be called “Exposure Blend” but is now called “Fuse Exposures”. This option produces nice exposure blends that look far more realistic than the HDR option. And now there is a Lightroom plug-in to make your life even easier---but beware!
I loaded Photomatix Pro and the Lightroom plug-in with no problems. I then went into Photomatix’s “Preferences” and set my output color space to ProPhoto RGB (same as Lightroom and Photoshop) and told it to create 16-bit tiff files. To get to the Photomatix plug-in from Lightroom I just clicked on File > Plug-in Extras > Export to Photomatix Pro and my images were sent into Photomatix for blending. Simple! But beware!
Then I went happily on my way blending all kinds of images and getting really great results! So good in fact that I rarely had to do any further tweaking in Lightroom or Photoshop. I probably blended 100s of images. Then one day I needed to do something to one of my blended tiffs in Photoshop. So, from Lightroom I clicked on Photo > Edit In > Photoshop. I usually choose the option to “Edit a Copy with Lightroom Adjustments” but since this was a blended tiff that had no additional Lightroom adjustments, I selected “Edit Original”. When the image opened up in Photoshop I got the color space mismatch dialog box! Huh? I set everything in Photomatix to ProPhoto RGB—same as my working space in Photoshop; why would I have a mismatch?
Well, it turns out that the Photomatix Lightroom plug-in creates a preset in the Lightroom Export dialog called “Photomatix Pro” and Lightroom uses that to export your files into Photomatix when you click on File > Plug-in Extras > Export to Photomatix Pro. This preset has Adobe RGB selected as the export color space. I tried to change this preset but to no avail. I also could not delete it or replace it. Perhaps there is a way to do so but it escapes me right now.
So I created a new preset called “Photomatix ProPhoto” with 16-bit tiff, ProPhoto RGB color space, export to Photomatix, and no compression selected. Now, when I want to do an exposure blend (or an HDR) I highlight my images in either the library (grid) or develop (film strip at the bottom) modules, click on File > Export > select my preset Photomatix ProPhoto > Export. Alternatively, I can click on File > Export with Preset > and select my new preset Photomatix ProPhoto. Now Lightroom exports the images using my preset and Photomatix does its thing and actually spits out a 16 bit tiff in the ProPhoto RGB color space and I am once again a happy camper! Except for the fact that I now have to re-blend 100s of images! Crikey!
Just thought I would pass this along to you Photomatix users. Perhaps you already knew about this and/or set up things correctly from the get-go. What can I say? I'm slow!
Good to know ...
Dave
Bill Brennan