Photomatix HDR Plug-in for Capture One in Beta
One of the features not available in Capture One that people often ask about is the ability to Merge HDR images. While there are third party options for merging images into an HDR file, such as Aurora HDR and Photomatix, none of these integrates particularly well with Capture One. Until now, that is. HDR Soft has released a beta version of Photomatix which has a Capture One plug-in, allowing you to merge images from Capture One, and it will re-import the finished file back once you've created your HDR.
The plug-in will come with Photomatix 6.2 and is currently in a public beta. I downloaded it to give it a try and see how well it works. I just did a brief test, so this isn't an in-depth review by any means. I am also only looking at the process of working with Capture One here, not the actual Photomatix software itself.
Video demo of the new Photomatix Capture One Plug-in
Once you install the plug-in, the operation is pretty simple. You select the images you want to merge in Capture One, and then from the Image menu (or the contextual menu) choose Edit With > Merge to HDR with Photomatix Pro. Doing this will send your selected images to Photomatix.
The first step will be to align and merge the images. Once this is complete, you will get the main interface where you can change your settings and adjust the image to your tastes. Once you are ready, you click on the finish button, and this will bring up a preview of the output, as well as a dialogue which shows the finishing options. Once you make your changes here, click "Save and Reimport" and the image will be sent back to Capture One.
I have only done limited testing so far, but it seems to be pretty seamless. I used to use Photomatix years ago, and its one of the first HDR tools available. I prefer Aurora HDR as its interface is a lot more user-friendly, but the workflow with this new plug-in makes it a much easier solution. If the lack of HDR merging was holding you back from Capture One, then this may well be a solution. Of course, it's probably not going to be for everyone, and it's not integrated as well as Lightroom's options, but it is one solution, and it's worth testing yourself.
You can download the beta now and try it for yourself. If you don't currently have a license for Photomatix, it will watermark the output, but it's okay for testing purposes.
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