The invention relates to a method for producing a three-dimensional article or at least a part of such an article made of a gamma prime (γ′) precipitation hardened nickel base superalloy with a high volume fraction (>25%) of gamma-prima phase which is a difficult to weld superalloy, or made of a cobalt base superalloy, or of a non-castable or difficult to machine metal material by means of selective laser melting (SLM), in which the article is produced by melting of layerwise deposited metal powder with a laser beam characterized in that the SLM processing parameters are selectively adjusted to locally tailor the microstructure and/or porosity of the produced article or a part of the article and therefore to optimize desired properties of the finalized article/part of the article.