Newbie looking for some feedback!

[Cameron.Smith7]

Hey everyone, new to the forum, and new to HDR photography in general. Ive only been at it for a about a month but have been really enjoying it!
Here's a shot I put together a few weeks ago. Let me now what you think and what I can work on.

 

[nos33]

I like the subject. the clouds seem a little dark but if it was taken on a darker day then that is understandable. you could really bring some detail out on that wood too.

 

[vipgraphx]

Not bad at all. I like the contrast from the sky to the flag. I do agree I would really try to push that wood texture to the max...For composition I personally would have tried to get the whole flag in and had less dead space to the left of the flag. I see some CA going on between the wood slats which can easily be fixed.

Here is a quick edit with the CA removed.

 

[Cameron.Smith7]

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions guys. As far as the wood detail goes, what should I adjust in Photomatix to really make the detail pop and keep the picture looking real/natural? And also,vipgraphx, could you tell me what tool or method you used to eliminate the bleed through the slates in your edit? Also what application (CS6, Lightroom, ect.)
Thanks again!

 

[vipgraphx]

I use photoshop CS5. for the CA just select the area that has it and it this case you had magenta as the color. Use your selection tool and and select the area, then go to image/adjust/ hue and saturation. Now from the drop down menu select magenta and adjust the saturation slider to the left and the lightness slider to the left and that should remove it. If you have green or blue CA you can use the same method to remove that.

With the wood you can make sure your strength is set to 100% and details. Then bring down the your micro smoothing but, this will effect your whole image and might ruin your sky. If it does you need to do a couple of runs with photomatix one for the sky and one for the texture of the wood. Then mask in the wood texture in photoshop to the better looking sky. Also in photoshop you can use high pass sharpening on the wood. And I would highly recommend Nik color effex and or topaz adjust. Nik color effex is more expensive but, it has control points which really comes in handy. There is a filter there called detail enhancer that is a dream come true for bringing out texture. Topaz has a many filters as well and one that would work well here would be portrait drama or clarity.

Sometimes with those global filters it hits the over all image to hard so this is when you use masking to just bring in what you like to the your work flow.