I am fairly new to this group so if I am providing information that has already been shared then I apologise.
Obviously many are using Photomatix and I notice that people just starting out seem to stick to using the default settings because all of those sliders can be quite daunting when you first start using the software. Unfortunately the default setting tends to be very flat in my opinion and the software is capable of much much more. So if you are just starting out the solution is Photomatix presets. I came across these a couple of years ago. There are 80 of them and they cover just about the full range of effects you might want to use. Of course as you become familiar with the software I would always suggest that you tweek the settings to perfectly match what you want to do. The presets are not mine, they were set up by some guy called Stuart I think. You can download them for free from here

http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&global=1&q=Photomatix+presets#/d1t7zme.

There are instructions on the website about how to load them into Photomatix if you using a pc. The process for mac isn't covered but it is relatively simple. Since I am a Mac user, if anyone wants help loading them onto a mac just let me know.

Peter

I am fairly new to this group so if I am providing information that has already been shared then I apologise.
Obviously many are using Photomatix and I notice that people just starting out seem to stick to using the default settings because all of those sliders can be quite daunting when you first start using the software. Unfortunately the default setting tends to be very flat in my opinion and the software is capable of much much more. So if you are just starting out the solution is Photomatix presets. I came across these a couple of years ago. There are 80 of them and they cover just about the full range of effects you might want to use. Of course as you become familiar with the software I would always suggest that you tweek the settings to perfectly match what you want to do. The presets are not mine, they were set up by some guy called Stuart I think. You can download them for free from here

http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&global=1&q=Photomatix+presets#/d1t7zme.

There are instructions on the website about how to load them into Photomatix if you using a pc. The process for mac isn't covered but it is relatively simple. Since I am a Mac user, if anyone wants help loading them onto a mac just let me know.

Peter