The HDR Potpourri Webinar with Brian Matiash

Richard Charpentier Photography, Photoshop, RLC Design Leave a Comment

This morning I got in a little earlier than normal.  I’d signed up for Brian Matiash’s latest “Webinar” with OnOne Software.  All things HDR always interest me, and I’ve followed Brian’s work for a while now.  So why not attend a webinar?

I do have to say that maybe the webinars could be a little later….  🙂  I mean, it was 8 my time (darned PST).  It was worth being a little early though.

I’ve been an OnOne user for almost a year now.  The Perfect Photo Suite is part of my bag of tools, and it’s becoming a favorite suite.  I use Perfect Resize (formerly Genuine Fractals) for resizing client pieces, setting up gallery wraps, etc.  PhotoTune is proving to me that I can achieve some amazing landscape results with one frame only and a little post processing with PhotoTune.  Photo Tools is a giant grab bag of cool filters and effects.  There’s so much in it that it’s hard to get a handle on what you want to try first.  Finally, OnOne’s masking software is quickly becoming a favorite.

So, seeing Brian’s webinar listing for today I had to sit in.  Pretty cool.  Like me he uses more than 1 HDR package depending on the results he’s looking for.  Right now I run Photomatix (like you didn’t know that) and HDR Efex Pro.  The really do yield different results in my opinion.  And each has a place in my arsenal of tools.  He also quickly demonstrated HDR Express (they’re running a promo on it now).  Tempting for $79, but I’ll take a pass for now thanks to all the vehicle expenses incurred on my recent trip (read Titan repairs).  Ah well.

Here’s what I found extra interesting during this morning’s webinar.  Some folks went a little off topic asking about screen calibration.  Brian was cool enough to roll with the questions and talk a little about calibrating and what tools he uses.  Color Munki Photo.  Hey, I’ve got one of those for profiling the printer and monitors.  Cool.

Getting to ask questions while you’re watching video instruction is a benefit to be sure.  We still covered some of his techniques with HDR, and with OnOne’s software.  But I thought it was pretty cool that he fielded other questions as well.  If this is how webinars work I’ll be signing up for more.  Oh, and I had one question about Photo Tools and revisiting what you’d done after rendering a layer in Photoshop.  Brian had a great answer, and showed how you can see your last uses of Photo Tools to get to the settings you used.  VERY COOL!  That’s been bugging me for months.  Thanks Brian!

So, if you get the chance to sit in on an OnOne Webinar give it a whirl.  And you should probably check out OnOne’s suite as well.  I’m a fan personally and with each use I’m learning more and more!

This image from Candyland is a single exposure processed only with PhotoTune. The results were better than with 3 brackets in Photomatix and HDR Efex Pro

 

 

 

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