Flag HDR Help

[itznfb]

I wanted to give my mom a picture of the US flag with PoW flag and have a very powerful look. I've been trying for a couple hours and all i come up with is something that looks like it was drawn with colored pencils by an infant.

these are the originals:

here are the full size:
http://www.itznfb.com/images/DSC_1110.JPG
http://www.itznfb.com/images/DSC_1111.JPG
http://www.itznfb.com/images/DSC_1112.JPG
http://www.itznfb.com/images/DSC_1248.JPG
http://www.itznfb.com/images/DSC_1249.JPG
http://www.itznfb.com/images/DSC_1250.JPG

any help with HDR on these photos would be much appreciated. i'm still not sure which photo i want to use for the final edit.

 

[ANDS!]

Theres really not much to pull out in those photos. You can certainly run it through an HDR program, and I believe some have a "Fake HDR" option, but theres not a whole lot of range here to justify creating an HDR image. If you had multiple exposure, and that sky was clear then sure. . .but not as is.

 

[itznfb]

that's actually very close to what i'm looking to do. i wanted to clouds to stand out and look dramatic but the flag to really pop. which you've done perfectly. you created that with the single image? what program did you use? i only have a trial of photoshop and it won't let me save as a jpg.

the originals are three exposures each. 1110, 1111, and 1112 are the first one, 1248, 1249, 1250 are the second one.

 

[Plankton]

I gave it a shot, there isn't too much difference in exposure levels between the pictures so I had to adjust them first. This is only my 2nd HDR photo that I have done (I did my first earlier today so very new at this ) I personally like it though. It is still a little bit noisy and photobucket picture quality reduction isn't helping either.

 

[itznfb]

that looks great as well. i just found photomatix and it's a lot easier than photoshop. but i'll have to purchase it if i want to get rid of the watermark.

i realize there isn't much to work with on this since the exposures are so close, but i'm just looking to create a photo that i can have printed and framed that will look good and be a dramatic representation. much like you guys accomplished.