What is Thy Bidding My MASTER COLLECTION CS5 – Just the Beginning

Multiple technique HDR image © Jay Goodrich

Last week we received our copy of Adobe’s Creative Suite 5 – Master Collection. I am sure that many of you already know about this software from all of the buzz Adobe has generated about its release. We decided that the Master Collection was a good choice for our office because we are starting to work in many other creative avenues in addition to just photography. Jay is shooting video now with the addition of stills, we are offering design work to our commercial clients, and to have the ability to open, adjust, and create any concept or idea we come up with in-house to promote Jay’s work, is an amazing time saver. Although we are just getting started with this substantial software package, Jay has spent the last week diving into the newest version of Photoshop and is quite pleased by its features and performance. Here is a little write up on the new version of HDR Pro.

Many Adobe users have probably seen the new “Puppet Warp” feature of Photoshop CS5 or the major updates to the selection and masks tools, but there is much less info out there about the new version of HDR Pro that is included with the software. I have to say that many years ago I dove right into HDR in CS3 looking for a way to solve the interior lighting issues you need to overcome when shooting high-end architecture photography. Although the process worked, it was slow, time consuming, and a major memory drain on my computer. I then migrated to using Photomatix almost exclusively for this work. It is fast and fairly accurate. I now use a mix of Photomatix and hand blending techniques to get my exposures exactly where I want them. When I heard that Adobe was updating the HDR component of Photoshop, I was really excited to give it a try.

My initial reaction is wow! This is vastly improved over the previous versions. The new HDR Pro processes way faster than the original versions, I feel safe saying, it feels just as fast as Photomatix. It has a ton of new adjustment sliders that allow you to create more artistic “grundge” HDR images or a completely realistic image based on whatever your current creative mindset is. In order to test it out, I took the same group of images, made adjustments in Lightroom and then exported them twice, once to Photomatix and once to HDR Pro. From there I mastered the final image generated just like I would any image in Photoshop CS5. I wasn’t trying to achieve the same effect in each, I was making my adjustments on what was produced so that I could compare the final product. Here are the results.

You can see that there are a few differences between the images, but I actually like both.

Photomatix image created with Exposure Fusion © Jay Goodrich

There is more contrast in the Photomatix image and a bit more haloing, but I like that effect. The Photoshop image handles the color a bit better but could use a little more contrast. I would give either of these images to a client. The Photoshop image appears a little closer to the scene as I remember it and there is a a little more detail in the shadows. The overall scene feels warmer in the Photoshop image which is why the colors look correct the light was really spectacular that evening.

HDR Pro image created in Photoshop CS5 © Jay Goodrich

So what do I think? I think Adobe is on the ball giving photographers the tools they need to create in an all-inclusive package. The key to any photographic tool is to use it where it should be used, then the results will shine. For me I still love Photomatix and I will continue to use it. I will also use HDR Pro now too. It will all depend on the effect and the final image that I am trying to create. Soon I am going to highlight the differences between creating a hand blended HDR image and one generated in Photoshop’s HDR Pro. Stay tuned to our blog until then!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 12th, 2010 at 12:45 pm. It is filed under articles, reviews and tagged with Adobe CS5 Master Collection, feature, HDR Pro, new, Photomatix, Photoshop. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.