Abstract. Recent investigations involving shock waves generation and shock pressure measurement in direct ablation regime and confined ablation regime for aluminium, copper, titanium and steel (40C130) materials are reported. Experimental measurements demonstrated that in direct ablation regime the peak pressures typically are less than 10 Pa when the incident laser intensity is about 10 W/cm and the time duration of the applied pressure is roughly equal to the laser pulse duration. It is shown that confinement of the surface with a transparent overlayer provided an effective method of enhancing laser-induced shock waves pressure in the target material with an order of magnitude for same laser intensity. Also, in this second regime, the pressure is applied over a period much longer than the laser-pulse duration. As an application measurements of the hardness of target surface before and after laser irradiation in direct ablation regime and confined ablation regime are given, and it is shown that the maximum value of surface hardness is obtained in confined ablation regime.