I need some HDR pointers

[Missdaisy]

I need to create a HDR image for my photography class. I don't have any editing programs so I downloaded the free trial version of Photomatix so I can play around with HDR. I went out and captured a couple of images just to play with. My biggest nit pick is that the water apears blue, how can I correct that without PS? Also to the top right the sky is blown out. Why are my colors off?

 

[Brick]

To correct the blue I'd create a duplicate layer, go to the hue/saturation adjustment, select blue, and turn the saturation down. Then erase through to the non-water parts of the picture. Not sure what would have caused it, would need to see the bracketed shots to figure that one out probably.

For the blown out sky, open up your 0 or -2 shot (depending on which one works best) behind your hdr layer, create a layer mask, and then paint through with a soft brush at 20-30% (may have to paint through a few times).

I'd probably also play around a little more with the photomatix settings, you've got quite a bit of halo action on the trees on the right. You may be able to fix that by adjusting the smoothing.

 

[scorpio_e]

I would suggest an editing program besides Photomatix. You should be able to correct the halo in Photomatix.

I would recommend:

GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program


as an editing program and it is FREE