PS 5 or Photomatix

I'm about to purchase a copy of Photomatix for HDR work but I hear that PS 5 has vastly improved HDR controls. I do plan to upgrade to PS 5 but I was going to wait a few months.

If I were going to buy something today, which would be the better purchase for just HDR?

- Dan.

On the basis that if it has to be today, then you really only have one choice - Photomatix.

If you don't mind pre-ordering then I would definitely try out CS5 because it looks to be a very able HDR tool from what I've seen so far.

I would stick with Photomatix, I have a good friend who does alot of HDR work (no nature photography) and while he hasn't done the beta for CS5 he has followed things along pretty closely. He isn't really all that excited about the HDR features of CS5. His blog post about it can be found here: http://www.tkrphoto.com/2010/04/initial-thoughts-on-hdr-in-photoshop-cs5/

I have Photomatix but I also use "Dynamic Photo HDR" which I like a little better and it's less expensive. You can check it out at: http://www.mediachance.com/hdri/index.html. They have a trial version if you want to give it a try.

Greg
Nevada

Thanks to everyone for their input. And thank you Greg about Dynamic Photo HDR. I'll try it out tonight. The price is certainly right.

- Dan