night scene HDR test

Congratulations on doing what you did and posting the info here for others.

I use photomatix to create the HDR image direct from RAW files, typically three photos with 1 stop between them, and then to tone map the HDR image.

Once done I save the picture as a 16 bit TIF file. I nearly always then do a bit more tweaking to the 16 bit TIF file in CS3 and/or lightroom and only when I'm happy with the result do I convert to 8 bits and save as a jpg for upload to the internet.

Even if I intend to print the image I'll still convert to jpg at that point (highest quality / lowest compression possible) as I use photobox and have been very pleased with the prints they do from jpg.

Of course it also helps to check that your monitor is at the least visually calibrated once in a while.

I think if I had CS3 I would probably migrate to photomatix. But at the moment I don't think the number of images I will convert to HDR will be high. Which is HDRShop is great because it costs nothing.

I use Photobox as well - why is it the bulk guys haven't added in support of TIFFs?

I thought everything on the internet was free :o)

No idea about the TIFF support. Maybe it's because the vast majority will only ever use jpg files and adding any extra support is seen as unnecessary and likely to confuse people.