Get your RAW on!
Method 1
okay lets get started shall we? I’m going to start by explaining the most common and fastest method. First of all open up Photomatix and open your RAW file, it will come up with a box saying that’s it’s creating a Pseudo HDR, after that’s done a pop up will appear advising you to create HDR’s from multiple exposures! Ignore this and click OK.
Thats it! Pretty simple huh, before we crack on with the tone mapping however I would like to introduce you to the method that I sometimes use.
Method ２
This method may take longer than the one listed above, but it’s good at managing noise. Open up Photoshop and open your RAW file (If you’re rocking and old version of Photoshop like me it might throw a hissy fit and say it can’t open the file. If it does this don’t worry, you can download a program called Camera RAW made by the geniuses at Adobe, which you can download from here). All sorted? Good! When the RAW window pops up click on the button that says “Auto” on the right to fix any exposure problems.
Now see that box that says “Exposure” underneath the Auto button you just clicked? Put “2.00″ in that box then click save in the bottom left hand corner.
Type in the name of your shot in that first box, then in the box opposite select “1 Digital Serial Number” from the drop down list (what this does is automatically name your exposures each time so you don’t have to). Make sure the “Begin Numbering” is set at 1 then select JPEG and set quality to 12, then click save.
After that’s done change the “Exposure” box to “0″ and click Save Image again. Don’t worry about naming the shot again as when you click Save it will automatically add the number 2 at the end of the shot. Once you’ve done that, repeat the same step but set the “Exposure” to “-2″ then save. You should end up with 3 bracketed JPEGS.
Open up Photomatix and select the 3 JPEGS we just created.
Click on the Ok button to proceed to the next screen.
Sometimes Photomatix has a hard time working out the difference in exposure between shots, so be good and help it along by selecting the correct E.V spacing from the drop down menu. 
You’re almost there! one more box to go Select the two boxes labeled “Reduce Chromatic Aberrations” and “Reduce Noise” Then click the Generate HDR button.
Pseudo Method vs My Method
Below is a screenshot of the results from both methods I just showed you. As you can see, the quick Pseudo (left) method has given the shot a much more punchy contrast ratio, and my method looks slighty softer (right).
When you zoom in on both shots you can see the difference in noise levels that both methods produce. The Pseudo HDR (left) has produced a lot more noise than my method (right), now don’t get me wrong, more noise isn’t always a bad thing and I’m not saying one method is better than the other, I just hate noise!
Anyway! Now we’ve got that little bit out the way we can proceed on to the next part of the tutorial, the Tone Mapping!