How to achieve THIS hdr effect?

I've now idea how to do this.

www.flickr.com/photos/​petecarr/475437514/

There's just a certain effect to the photo that isn't overdone, but you know it's hdr.

When I edit a hdr in photomatix, it either looks alot like the original photo, but better exposed with the foreground and background, and much better detail, which is great, but how is this particular effect achieved?

How do you know it is HDR?

Because the photographer has an HDR tutorial on his site and this image is in his tutorial

Just noticed that.

He admits 'standing at a crazy angle' , so maybe no tripod.

All the under exposed areas in the right hand building do not suggest HDRI.

RiveraRa wrote in post #12200339
Because the photographer has an HDR tutorial on his site and this image is in his tutorial

The fact that it is on his site and in a tutorial is irrelevant to the luminance of the scene. THe tutorial does not explain the capture and processing of this image, which is apparently the nature of the OP's inquiry.

My point was, there is a difference between a scene that possesses a high dynamic range and processing an image with HDR toning, whether the scene and the resulting captured image data possesses a high dynamic range or not. That is, you can run a single raw that captures the entire range of the scene (ie, a non-HDR set of data, typically) through Photomatix and get a "look" - this does not necessarily make the scene HDR.

As long as we are clear about the difference between a high dynamic range scene and an HDR look, the OP can hopefully make progress toward achieving the look regardless of the capture method and scene. The example to which the OP links may not have had a super huge dynamic range, even if the photographer took multiple exposures to make the image.

To the OP - whether you are trying to get the look using a single raw or multiple images that are merged into a single HDR dataset, the artist to which you linked likely used Photomatix (note the noise in the sky, a feature of Photomatix ) and post in photoshop, lightroom or another app capable of further processing - see his HDR tutorial:

http://www.vanilladays​.com/hdr_tutorial/

Kirk

yeah. regardless of how it was shot i would like to know any specific settings used to create the effect the image has.

Very obviously looks to be hdr to me, it has many of the telltale side effects. Just because he chose to leave some areas in the black doesn't mean it isn't hdr.

Anyway, if your using pmatix a good place to start you in that direction would be an increased gamma (about 1.1 - 1.2) w/ some black point left in, moderate to high (depends on the image) luminance & negative smoothing value, and very low microsmoothing value (about 1).

While I think it works quite well for that particular image, it's not always ideal. Going too "crunchy" can in many cases make an image look like garbage to be frank. Just a matter of knowing when it works and when it doesn't.

While not pushed quite as far, here are a few I did a week or 2 ago in a similar fashion.
Upping the black point of course will introduce more blacks (& contrast) as will lower luminance values.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/sheaspina/55926​93336/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/sheaspina/55920​98359/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/sheaspina/55926​88862/

Cheers subaspoon. Much appreciated.