The process is very easy
Simply drag your selected bracketed shots from where ever they may be into Photomatix. I chose on this occasion to drag 6 CR2s from Lightroom (-2, -1, 0, 0, +1, +2)
Confirm the HDR processing
Confirm the bracketed shots to be used or browse for alternatives
Photomatix will estimate the EV values of the shots chosen. Either confirm or adjust these numbers as required. This is important to allow the software to know what the originals were shots at/bracketed
This next step allows Photomatix to correct the final or original images for things like noise, alignment ,and ghosting (moving artifacts in image such as clouds leaves) Be careful not to use all the options if you dont think they are required as using them will result in much higher processing times and ultimately wont give as good a result if the algorithm is looking for corrections that aren't required.
Then simply select pre-process
If you have selected "semi-manual" reduction of Ghosting Artifacts the next dialogue box will appear allowing you to zoom in to the pre-processed imaged and manually treat these artfacts. If if looks okay simply select "OK"
The next step is to chose your HDR option. You can chose to just merge the files using exposure fusion option. This is a fairly quick but rough way of creating your HDR as it doenst allow for any fine tuning of the image.
The alternative is to select tone mapping that uses a tone mapping algorithm to blend the images. and present you with many slider to adjust and customise the final image. It comes with a selection of presets with thumbnails. Or as you beome more experienced and familar with the package, there are all the slider options that are best played with to discover their various effects. This is especially true with different original images used as the controls can have differing effects depending upon the original source image data.
After a few minutes (yes minutes) you will have the final product which you can then save as JPG, 8 Bit TIFF or 16 Bit TIFF files.
