Photomatix - from Jesse's Bud

Here's a shameless plug for some awesome software - Photomatix. Check out www.hdrsoft.com There's a huge problem of "Dynamic Range" with CCD's. Digital cameras use light sensitive "chips" to take a picture. This chip is an array of pixels that turn light into electrons. Each pixel has a "gate" stuck to the top of it which keeps the electrons in the pixel. It's a lot like a battery. A "potential" is a way of describing differences in energy. For example, a battery has a potential of 1.5V between the + and - ends. That's what makes the electrons move from the top to the bottom when you plug it in to something. Anyways, with pixels in cameras, you can only hold a certain number of electrons before the pixel saturates. They also have a hard time capturing bright things next to faint things like the sun next to somebodys face. So this software takes a bunch of pictures of different light levels (that you take) and only uses the well exposed parts of each image, throwing away the over & under exposed regions. I'll be trying this shortly, but here's some pictures from Jesse's friend (who again?). Freeware by smart people is always a welcome thing!