[HDR-photo] Why does the preview look better than the finaloutput image?

[Blochi]

> Perhaps a shortcut would be to select regions of the image for this  
> treatment.

I believe that is what Photomatix does when you zoom into the  
Preview. However, that can still be way off, just because the actual  
Tonemapping process takes the entire image into account. That's why  
it takes so long.

FDR-Tools has an interesting solution for that problem. It allows to  
create "Parameter Bracketing". You set a min/max and increment value  
for a parameter, and then let it run in batch mode overnight. It  
tonemaps the fullsize image over and over again, and you can select  
afterwards. Might be harder to implement in Photomatix, since it has  
more parameters to begin with....

Blochi