Idaho Springs, HDR Comparison

I took a ride last week to a nearby mountain town called Idaho Springs. I've been there several times before and always thought of returning to shoot the town. This visit was just that. I've been playing around with processing techniques lately and when I went through these shots they all came out on the heavy side of what I consider natural processing. So I went through them again with the specific task of making them a bit more natural looking and am now faced with the question of which version is preferred. The shots below are presented in pairs, side by side if your monitor is big enough. If you care to share your views as to which you prefer, I'd appreciate the feedback. I'm still trying to dial this in.

Here's some more shots from the day, no comparison shots though:

Okay, Jon, I'll play. My preferences would be:
Left
Right
Right (buildings pop more but the sky is a little distracting)
Pick 'em.

Really liked the statue and the RR car.

Wow, a lot of images to look at. What a fantastic place to photograph. I'm amazed that the streets are deserted.

A few comments for the first set. I think I like the extra detail in the buildings but not the sky. On your first image, I agree that it was too cool but I think you might try warming a bit more to the yellow side rather than red. Here's an edit I did on your cool shot as an example.

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On your second set, it's too bad you cropped the hat on the statue and I'd like to see a shot just of the waterfall too.

I think all these turned out super.

Hi Jon....for the compares, I like the images on the left for the more natural skies but the right for the better detail contrast/texture.....c​ept #1 is too blue-ish. I see navydoc has it).
I like the alley shot also.

bpiper7 wrote in post #12552413
Okay, Jon, I'll play. My preferences would be:
Left
Right
Right (buildings pop more but the sky is a little distracting)
Pick 'em.

Really liked the statue and the RR car.

Thanks Bill. I should have mentioned that the heavier processed shots were using Topaz Adjust and then processing, where the less processed shots were taking those adjustments and screening them back with original Photomatix dump and blending the two together. In the second and third shot sets looking down Miner Street the sky is about 80% Photomatix and the buildings kept about 70% Topaz.

navydoc wrote in post #12552511
Wow, a lot of images to look at. What a fantastic place to photograph. I'm amazed that the streets are deserted.

A few comments for the first set. I think I like the extra detail in the buildings but not the sky. On your first image, I agree that it was too cool but I think you might try warming a bit more to the yellow side rather than red. Here's an edit I did on your cool shot as an example.

Thanks Gene. It was about 6:00 in morning when we started and the town was pretty much deserted at that hour. As I told Bill, the less processed does still use quite a bit of the Topaz version, but you're both correct that I did screen it back a bit. When I used just the PM sky and the Topaz buildings it looked a bit out of whack. I'll look into playing with the adjustment and try to put a bit more back into the buildings.

I like your warming of the first shot, thanks!

navydoc wrote in post #12552534
On your second set, it's too bad you cropped the hat on the statue and I'd like to see a shot just of the waterfall too.

I think all these turned out super.

Thanks again. There's a water wheel just off the statue shot which is the reason that the hat is cropped. It looks like I didn't include any of it, so I'll throw one in below.

Spike44 wrote in post #12552726
Hi Jon....for the compares, I like the images on the left for the more natural skies but the right for the better detail contrast/texture.....c​ept #1 is too blue-ish. I see navydoc has it).
I like the alley shot also.

Thanks Spike.

I didn't include this shot because I didn't care for the processing, but it shows the portion of the wheel behind the statue.

Yep. Too "pebbly" for me.

I tend to like the 'slightly surreal' hdr shots, not completely overdone or anything, but I really enjoyed the ones you processed with topaz adjust. That's just my preference though! Really though, great series, thanks for sharing!