Time for some HDR News

(UPDATE: Trey Ratcliff’s HDR DVD ( Basic Edition and Premium Edition ) are now officially available for sale on his website. I’ve embedded his preview at the end of the post).

Last night was kind of a big night on the HDR news front, with two major bits of news breaking.

First, Photomatix 4′s beta program is now open to the general public. Photomatix is the leading HDR creation program and their new beta has some solid improvements over previous versions. I have used the beta some, however, their lack of an update to the Aperture plugin means that I have not used it as often as Photomatix 3. With Nik Software’s HDR plugin (most likely titled HDR Efex Pro) getting closer to a release, HDR Soft had to start getting Photomatix 4 in front of more people.

Also, on the instruction front, a huge announcement from Trey Ratcliff. His HDR DVD should be available on Friday (yes, the 13th…gullp). This DVD is going to follow him in both Photomatix and Photoshop as he creates his HDR images. The DVD will be available in a Basic Edition for $197 and a Premium Edition for $397. I consider Trey to be the foremost authority on HDR Photography, and I cannot wait to get my hands on the DVD. I hope to have a review of it up in a couple of weeks.

UPDATE: The following is video Trey created to show the type of things that will be available in his HDR Training Video: