Photomatix Pro vs rawhdr

Photomatix Pro combines bracketed photos into HDR images, bringing out detail in both dark and bright areas. Version 7 offers six HDR methods, including Tone Mapping and Fusion, with advanced tone-mapping controls. Automatic alignment handles hand-held shots, and ghost-removal tools address movement between frames. Batch processing includes previews; presets and tools are also provided for real estate photography. Lightroom and Capture One plugins let users process photos and return the HDR image to those applications. The trial has no time limit, but trial-mode images carry a watermark. Photomatix Pro 7 costs $99, paid once; its license is a one-time purchase for one user and does not expire. The Pro Plus Bundle costs $129, paid once. PhotomatixCL offers command-line merging, processing, alignment, ghost removal, and JPG, TIFF, or EXR output; its free plan includes 100 credits per month. Photomatix Pro is listed for Windows and macOS, while the CLI runs on Linux and Windows.

rawhdr is a free command-line package for combining multiple RAW photographs into a high-dynamic-range image. It also performs focus stacking from multiple images. RAW input can use formats known by the rawpy library, while output can use HDR formats known by imageio. The resulting HDR exposure follows the first RAW file supplied. Installation is documented with pip install rawhdr, and a Python API is available for exposure merging and focus stacking. Its exposure-scaling helper leaves out extremely bright pixels that may be saturated and very dark pixels that may be noisy. OpenEXR writing may require the additional freeimage library through imageio. Python 3.7 or newer is required. PyPI classifies the package as OS Independent, with Linux and API listed as platforms. It is licensed under the GNU General Public License v2 or later. PyPI names Felix Thaler as author and maintainer.