I really like the use of HDR at sunset! Its not perfected yet (the dark gaps) but I was able to take one of my photos and underexpose it and over expose it and then merge them together in an HDR.
LOL as you can see, I havent bought it (yet)! But I did spring for two boxes of Girl Scout cookies today!
No pain no gain! HDR is definitely effective for sunsets. It's a good feeling to know that I can take a photo that shows what I saw with my own eyes.
I like this but for me it's a little to artsy and not realistic. I know you are still working on it. Okay, this was taken using one image, right? It's best to use multiple images through a range of EV's right? I'm thinking of taking 5 shots with an EV range of -1, -0.5, 0, +0.5, +1.0. Or am I thinking this all wrong and Photomatix only uses one image? I'm running out of time to research this stuff. LOL
Scott, Photomatix seems to be a very popular software package for creating HDR images and it supports multiple images. In fact when I was reading up on this technique a couple years ago, I read that the more images of different EVs the better
I haven't attempted this technique yet, However, I find myself becoming more intrigued by the results I see from others & I am sure it won't be long before I am on the bandwagon.
photomatix works best with multiple images, although it can be done with 1, the easiest and quickest is to use 3 images, -2, 0, +2, convert to jpeg, as shot, very important, no other post processing, then line up and tone map, it's actually a fairly easy program to learn the basics, but it has sliders that allow a lot of tone control once you learn the basics, be advised though these are huge files when done and it helps to have a lot of ram and processing power, otherwise it'll be a very slow process
Scott, Actually this particular image was created using one image from my camera and the exposure changed to -1 and +1 then I used photomatix to combine all three. As for looking artsy its not that far off from what the actual picture looked like. The biggest change is the brightening of the crowd and some shading. this is the original:
