Getting started
Photomatix works with photographs of the same scene taken under different exposure settings. Such images are often called "bracketed" images in reference to the auto-bracketing exposure functions available on many camera models.
If you don't have differently exposed images available yet, you can start using Photomatix with the sample bracketed low resolution images provided with the application under the Samples folder. To try Photomatix with your own images, follow the instructions under the section Taking differently exposed images.
You do not necessarily need several exposures to use Photomatix though. If you have taken a single exposure shot in RAW mode, you can still use the Tone Mapping tool with it. For that, either open your RAW file in Photomatix to convert it into a pseudo-HDR image, or convert it first into a 16 bits/channel image in your favorite RAW converter. In both cases, you will then be able to process the image with Tone Mapping from menu HDR. In the case of a 16-bit image, you can use the 48-bit Compression tool too.
Another trick is to derive several exposures from the RAW file and combine them with the Exposure Blending method Highlight & Shadows - Auto. (Please note that deriving "fake" exposures from a single RAW is not suited to the creation of an HDR image -- you can directly convert your RAW file into a pseudo-HDR image by simply opening it in Photomatix).
It is important to remember that the dynamic range you can retrieve from a single RAW file is limited. A single exposure is not sufficient for a scene having a high dynamic range, and in most cases not sufficient either for medium dynamic range. In order to take the best advantage of the dynamic range you camera can capture, we recommended that you overexpose slightly when taking the image to limit noise in the shadows.

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