Pseudo HDR with ACR? Bringing out the foreground in tropical photos

Tim, I did a really quick job using only LR4, just to "squeeze" the highlights and the shadows and such and see how far we could push things.

Note that I did mess with the Lunminance of the Blue channel (darker for the sky) as well as the green channel (lighter for the trees).

Aside from the global controls shown I did no "local" adjustments (no brushing). It would be interesting to see how far you could go with doing some stuff to the trees and sky and such.

That jpeg was really squeezed, and I see arifacts, sorry!

I have someplace I have to go, so can't mess with it any more!

You got a cool cartoonish look there Tony

Heh! I'm back, saw your comment!

I didn't mess a lot with it, a few quick things, but I do think it at least shows that LR can bring things a long ways and even more than what I did!

I've been playing with ACR after the tips on the thread. Just turning highlights down, fill light up, increasing exposure and playing with a few random sliders can make a pretty nice pseudo HDR from a single file. Much easier than learning other software Thanks to all for the tips.