Download PhotomatixCL

PhotomatixCL is a Command Line Interface tool that lets you integrate HDR image processing into your application. PhotomatixCL runs on Windows and Linux.

PhotomatixCL takes a set of exposure bracketed photos as input, aligns and merges them to HDR, and further processes the image with tone mapping or fusion. The resulting image can be saved as JPEG or TIFF, and the 32-bit merged HDR image as EXR or Radiance.

PhotomatixCL offers the same HDR methods and presets as the Photomatix Pro application which you can try for free.

Download PhotomatixCL for free from the links below. It will run as a trial until you register it with a PhotomatixCL license.

(The trial is fully functional but adds a watermark to the output images. A PhotomatixCL license disables the watermark.)

Download

Installation

If you are installing a license for a single machine, use the instructions below. Otherwise, see the full installation instructions.

Windows

Run the installer

Linux

1. Go to the directory where you want PhotomatixCL to be installed, and run this command:

   tar xf <FolderDownloadedFile>/PhotomatixCL-7.1-U20.tar.gz

   Where <FolderDownloadedFile> is the path to the folder where you downloaded PhotomatixCL.

2. To get EXIF data copied to output files, install the "exiftool" package using your system's package manager.
3. To get automatic lens correction for cameras and lenses that are supported, install the "lensfun" data package (it could also be called "liblensfun" or "liblensfun-data" depending on your system).

Merging a bracketed set with PhotomatixCL

A command line for merging one bracketed images sets follows this pattern:

PhotomatixCL [Options] [Input Files]

Sample PhotomatixCL command

The command below will align and merge three image files to HDR, tone map the 32-bit HDR image with the default preset and save the result as JPEG:

Let's look at the options passed to PhotomatixCL:

-a2:  Align the input bracketed images

-x Detailed:  Tone map the merged HDR image with the 'Detailed' preset.

-h remove:  Remove the 32-bit HDR image after tone mapping (if you prefer to keep it, then add the option -32 and replace '-h remove' with '-h exr' to save the 32-bit HDR image in OpenEXR format).

-s jpg:  Save the tone mapped image in JPEG format (use -s tif to save as TIFF).

-o <PathOutput>OutputImage:  Save the resulting image as OuputImage.jpg in the directory at path <PathOutput>. Note that the extension is automatically added.

Last arguments:  The remaining arguments are the path names of the input bracketed photos and aren't preceded by an option.

Note: The input images must be supplied at the end of the command line. All other arguments can be supplied in any order, as long as they are before the input images.

Batching images with PhotomatixCL

PhotomatixCL processes one set of bracketed images.

To batch process a folder containing multiple sets of bracketed images, you can use the PhotomatixCL-Driver command line utility which is part of the PhotomatixCL download, and installed in a 'Batch' subfolder.

A command line for processing multiple sets of bracketed images follows this pattern:

PhotomatixCL-Driver [Selection Criteria] [PhotomatixCL Command Line]

[Selection Criteria]

This refers to your choices for the directory to look in, the number of images in a set and any criteria that the file names must match. The criteria are given with the following command line options:

[PhotomatixCL Command Line]

This is the full command line you would use to process a bracketed set in PhotomatixCL, but with two differences:

1. You don't enter the path of the input files at the end of the command line. PhotomatixCL Driver will automatically add them before PhotomatixCL is run.
2. You need to use the -d option to specify the path of the output folder where the processed images will be saved (the -o option isn't applicable when using PhotomatixCL Driver).

See the PhotomatixCL command generator further down to generate a PhotomatixCL command line based on the options you enter in the form.

You can also find the full PhotomatixCL options reference and command examples in the PhotomatixCL Documentation.

Sample PhotomatixCL Driver Command

The command below aligns and merges to HDR the JPEG files in the folder specified by the '-s' option, in sets of three images each, then processes them with the 'Natural' preset, and saves the resulting images into the folder specified by the '-d' option.

(The part of the command line corresponding to the Set Selection Criteria is in orange color and the part corresponding to the PhotomatixCL Command Line in green color.)

Commands on a Windows OS

cd "c:\Program Files\PhotomatixCL" Batch\PhotomatixCL-Driver -n 3 -s "c:\Images\Sets" -m "*.jpg" PhotomatixCL -a2 -x Natural -d "c:\Images\Output\\"

Commands on a Linux OS

cd /home/<user>/PhotomatixCL/ Batch/PhotomatixCL-Driver -n 3 -s /home/<user>/Images/Sets -m "*.jpg" PhotomatixCL -a2 -x Natural -d /home/<user>/Images/Output/

If you've installed the statically linked version of PhotomatixCL, then replace '/home/<user>/PhotomatixCL/PhotomatixCL' with '/home/<user>/PhotomatixCL/PhotomatixCL-static'.

In case you get a permission error the first time you run the command, right-click on the PhotomatixCL-Driver file, select the 'Properties' option, click on the 'Permissions' tab and check the box 'Allow executing the file as program'.

PhotomatixCL Command Generator

The two boxes at bottom contain the PhotomatixCL and PhotomatixCL-Driver command lines automatically generated from the options selected in the form. You can change the selection to customize the command lines to your needs.

PhotomatixCL command line alone

Full PhotomatixCL-Driver command line