User's Manual

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Photomatix Essentials 4.0 User Manual
2.2.3 Details Enhancer Settings
The following settings belong to the Details Enhancer method, which is used
by these Presets: Default, Painterly, Painterly 2, Painterly 3, Painterly 4, Enhanced,
Surreal, Grunge, Grunge 2, Creative, Creative 2, Creative 3, Soft 2, Soft 3, Smooth,
Smooth 2, Monochrome, Monochrome 2, B&W Artistic.
• Strength: Aects the amount of enhancement given to contrast and detail in
the image. A value of 100 gives the greatest enhancement. Moving the slider
to the left gives a more natural eect. The default value is 70.
• Saturation: Adjusts the color saturation of the image. The greater the
saturation, the more intense the color. Setting the slider to its lowest
value (0) produces a grayscale image. The default value is 46.
• Tone Compression: Adjusts the dynamic range of the tone mapped image. Moving the slider to the right
decreases the dynamic range, brightening the shadows and darkening the highlights. Moving to the left has
the opposite eect, giving a more ‘natural’ look.
• Detail Contrast: Controls the amount of contrast applied to detail in the image. Moving the slider to the
right increases the contrast of details and gives a sharper look to the image, but also has a darkening eect.
Moving to the left decreases the contrast of details and brightens the image.
• Lighting Adjustments slider: Aects the overall ‘look’, controlling the extent to which the image looks
natural or surreal.
2.2.2 Working with Presets
Photomatix Essentials displays presets as thumbnails on theright side of the Step 2 window. Each thumbnail is
a small preview of theeect of that preset on your image. When you click a thumbnail, that preset is selected
and applied to the main preview. The parameters at the left of the screen are also updated to reect the settings
contained in a clicked preset.
These built-in thumbnail presets are “factory” presets that are provided with thesoftware. Photomatix Essentials oers
31 built-in presets when you are working withbracketed photo sets, 26 presets when you load just a single photo.
The built-in presets use a range of dierent settings combinations that provide pleasing results with a wide
variety of image types. Built-in presets are a good starting point for exploring your own custom settings, ne-
tuned to your specic image. 
Dierent combinations of settings produce a wide range of image eects and styles. When you nd a new
settings combination that works well for a given type of image, you may wish to save this settings combination
for future use with similar images. To save your own “custom preset” for convenient access later, in the Presets
drop-down list:
1. Click the Presets drop-down list.
2. Select Save Preset from the list.
3. Enter a name for the preset in the File name eld and click Save.
If you save the preset in the default location (which is also the Presets folder used by the Photomatix Pro
application), the preset is automatically added to the Presets combo-box list. If you save it in another location,
you can access it by clicking on the Presets drop-down list and selectingLoad Presetfrom the list.
Details Enhancer settings