Comparison:Essential HDR, Dynamic Photo HDR, and Photomatix Pro

I did a not very scientific test of three HDR programs. All were done of the same image with 5 exposures with 1 f-stop increments. The three programs are Essential HDR, Dynamic Photo HDR, and Photomatix Pro. Since I'm primarily a purist and not really interested in creationism, I used the settings that brought out the details. No post processing was done in PS afterward. I kept the adjustments in each program to a minimum to see what the program would do in their basic settings as much as possible. In order to save time I have posted the results to a blog here

Fun with HDR

NOTE: Large files slow loading page. I used large files to avoid artifacts.

You seem to like Essential HDR prety much, but you should think twice before buying this program. The official version, released last summer, appeared to have a few very serious bugs. Some people (e.g. Canon 50D users) are simply unable to load images in Essential HDR. Also, there are very serious misallignment and noise problems and I have noticed on several occasions that the final, tonemapped image, differs from the one in the preview. The people from Essential HDR (Imaging Luminary) are returning the money to complaining customers, so that would give you an indication of how serious the problems are.