Photomatix Presets

Author: Rachael Towne

Photomatix comes with several presets already installed.  These are "Natural", "Painterly", "Smooth Skies" and "Grunge".  While these pre-installed presets are likely able to produce some attractive images some of the time, in my experience this happens infrequently.  Photomatix gives the option to make your own presets or to install presets that are already made.

To install Photomatix presets that are already made, you need to simply place them in the correct folder in your computer. To install to a Mac you would place them in: Users/Library/Application support/Photomatix/Presets. To install them to Windows paste them into the following root and unzip. C:\Program Files\PhotomatixPro3\Presets.

There are not currently many sources for free Photomatix presets on the Internet.  By far the most popular source is a rather large collection of offered by <a href="http://the-yard-collective.deviantart.com/art/Stuart-s-Photomatix-Presets-109547798?offset=50#comments">The-Yard-Collective </a>on DeviantArt.  I personally use these presets with most of my HDR images and find them very useful.  Often I can find a preset from this list that produces a very close final result.  I then simply have to tweak the sliders a bit to fine tune the image.

To make your own presets, you would first adjust an image in Photomatix exactly as you would like it to appear.  You can then choose "Save Settings" and name your preset.  It's possible to choose a location to save it, but if you want it to appear in the preset drop-down menu then you need to save it to the default location, which you will see is called simply "presets".

If you don't own a license to Photomatix, but would like to try the software, you can.  The main <a href="http://www.hdrsoft.com/">HDRsoft website</a> offers a fully functional trial version that can be downloaded from their website.  The trial version never expires but does add a watermark to saved images.

Enjoy!

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/visual-art-articles/photomatix-presets-3103518.html

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This Photomatix coupon code will take 15% off your purchase of any Photomatix product. Also, my blog has a comprehensive Photomatix tutorial written for beginners as well as a review of the software.