Using Photomatix for Non-HDR Merging

Photomatix is stand-alone software that is used to merge bracketed exposures into High Dynamic Range (HDR) images. Such images have a range of tonalities that exceed what would otherwise be captured by a camera and can be quite useful with high contrast light. But Photomatix can also be used experimentally for non-HDR applications, such as merging two or more images with different subject matter.

(If you are new to HDR, see my tutorial HDR Basics )

For example, in this image of Dance Bliss by artist Marco Cochrane I wanted to have her dancing with herself. This can be accomplished several ways, including using the Apply Image filter in Photoshop. But I did not care for the results that much, so tried merging in Photomatix.

Here is another shot from a different angle. Note that the dancer is in a space that has little detail in the first image.

Using Photomatix, I merged the two images but felt it needed something to indicate motion.

That motion came from an image created by zooming for a 2.5S exposure.

Merging the two versions of Dance Bliss with the zoomed shot produced Dancing Women:

Note that for this merge of 3 images, the boxes for Align Source Images and Reduce Ghosting Artifacts were unchecked. If you try to align the images, the software may try to align things that shouldn't (and maybe that's ok) and you get a cropped version like this