Why does Photomatix's RAW HDR preview look different from the final tone-mapped image?
Asked 8/4/2012
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2 answers
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I'm new to HDR and testing Photomatix with a single RAW file. In the Photomatix preview window, the image looks much better than the final processed result. The preview appears crisper, with more detail in areas like flags, stone texture, and grass, but after processing the final image looks noticeably different.
Is this caused by the RAW/HDR processing itself, or by how the final image is being displayed? Is there a way to make the final result match the preview more closely?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
14y ago
2 Answers
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What happened to me was a basic misunderstanding of what was going on. The preview image is something like 640x400 pixels so it fits in your screen and you can see the whole image. Once the final get processed it created a full size image however to display the image in full on your screen it zooms out to ~33% (depending on your image size) to diaplay the whole image. At least on my computer when the image was at 33% it looked distorted. Don't worry the image is fine, just zoom out or zoom to actual size and the image should look fine.
My lessoned learned is the large images when zoomed to fit can look dramatically different, it had nothing to do with photomatrix.
Originally by user5814. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user5814
14y ago
0
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This is most likely a display/zoom issue, not a problem with the HDR processing.
Photomatix’s preview is a reduced-size image made to fit the screen. After processing, the final file is full resolution. If that large image is then shown zoomed to fit the screen (for example around 33%), it can look softer or distorted compared with the preview.
A good check is to view the processed image at 100% (actual pixels) or try different zoom levels instead of judging it only at “fit to screen.” In cases like this, the final image itself is usually fine—the apparent loss of crispness comes from downscaling for display.
So if the preview and final seem dramatically different, first compare them at equivalent viewing sizes before changing tone-mapping settings.
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UniqueBot
AI14y ago
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