Simple HDR question

[shortpballer]

I am shooting in RAW. I have photomatix on my computer. When I upload my images from my flash card they go into Aperture. However when I open photomatix I can't pull them straight from aperture. I have to put them in a file on my desktop then bring them into photomatix. They then are not in RAW anymore. Then when I am done combining the photos in photomatix I have to bring them back to the desktop then put them back in aperture. They end up being like 1/6 the size as before. Can someone tell me the steps they use from camera to end result to get HDR images? Sorry if this is a repost.

Thanks,
Eric

 

[PhotoXopher]

I've always just exported the RAW as a high quality JPG, once they are combined there's no way for them to remain RAW anyway.

 

[shortpballer]

Everytime I do it, they seem to turn out a little over exposed? Am I doing something wrong? i feel like the HDR image actually looks worse than the image taken with the normal exposure

 

[KmH]

I usually import my RAW files directly into Photomatix, generate the HDR TIFF, do my tone mapping etc in Photomatix and export (still TIFF) into Photoshop for finishing.

I usually have to covert to 8-bits (JPEG) somewhere late in the finishing stage so I can continue the finishing. I save a .psd just before I do so I have all my layers.

Output of course, is always a JPEG.