Underwater HDR, Redux

Following up on the thoughts on this post, witness the  image to right.  Now, I’m not claiming it’s the best image, nor am I trying to even state that I’m done with post-processing.  I am, but only because I’ve decided I’m not happy with the composition.

But I am happy with the results of my tests.  In this case, I now know: when doing handheld bracketed shots, Photoshop CS5′s “Merge to HDR Pro” function is incredibly more useful than Photomatix 3.2.  It’s not just the ghosting, although that sure cleaned up a lot.

No, it’s how easily CS5 finds like components and merges them together.  Seriously, it’s just incredible: this is a three-frame HDR, in JPG.  Compare the sharpness (not the contrast) and the merging to this:

Underwater HDR, Try #1

I’m not really sure why there’s such a huge difference, but look at the background.  You can see ghosting in the coral when processed in Photomatix 3.  None of that in CS5.

For what it’s worth: yes, I’m aware that Photomatix 4 will fix the ghosting problem – or so Trey says. And yes, I did try to get Photomatix to do its fixes.

I’m really looking forward to Photomatix 4 now…