First Successful HDR

[Moglex]

Sounds like I wasted my time! Oh well, lesson learned!

Don't say that. You can't both learn something AND waste your time.

You've tried Photomatix and produced a nice shot.

I still disagree with Bifurcator about it being quicker/easier to split the thing into layers and play with curves. It's quicker to fly yourself from A - B than to drive but not if you have to learn to fly first! Something to learn in the future, though.

I do agree with him about reducing the yellow a little. I had a play and found that reducing the yellow and cyan and increasing the blue produced something I found an improvement - you may find different changes more pleasing.

I'd definitely recommend you spend some time just playing around with the hue/saturation/lightness control. I'm sure you'll be able to make changes that will make you even more pleased with the shot.

Do watch out for posterisation if you make really heavy changes to the lightness or saturation values, though.

And, if you do do that and think you've improved the shot, please post the result.

 

[ZacMan1987]

Always use RAW for the greatest flexibility.

You will never lose information by shooting RAW.

You will always lose information by compressing to JPG.

True, but with HDR there is an even better reason. CS2 will not allow you to create HDR's out of JPEGs. Maybe CS3, never tried.

 

[rubbertree]

thank you!