Best way to get rid of HDR glow...?

I have been using Photomatix to experiment with HDR. I can use higher light smoothing in Photomatix to kill some of the glow, but then I lose some of the HDR effect that I like in other areas of the photo. In longer exposure night shots, I don't really have this problem.

I am not a Photoshop expert, so I was wondering if anyone could suggest a method for softening or blending (erasing?) the glow you notice around the statues in this shot. When I try using a brush it looks unnatural (because I am not a skilled Photoshop user). Is the brush the way to do it? Settings on the brush? Something else? Any suggestions or other comments or info is appreciated!

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The really big halo around the figures could probably be eliminated by just maksing the blue sky and replacing it all with a subtle gradiant.

Pick a middle blue, lighten it a little at one and and darken it a bit at the other then run the gradient vertically from top to bottom, dark to light (the sky gets darker as you look up, generally...)

Others without this problem...

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RobNYC wrote in post #6053142
I do not really notice the problem in longer exposure night shots. But any C& C welcomed on any of these shots!

Those are GREAT shots, Rob.
Tnx for sharing!

Thank you Robert!

The problem with HDR is, it's too easy to go overboard on it and get awful oversatured 1970s-colour-telly images, which this haloing tends to go hand in hand with. The colours here don't look too garish; you could probably fix a fair bit of this by being a bit more careful with the light smoothing and microcontrast controls in Photomatix. It's always a compromise between the strength of the effect and the negative impact on the image.

Its been ages since I used Photomatix but if you reduce the dramatic light radius it'll keep the HDR effect and get rid of that haloing effect. I think! But aside from that, it looks great.

Edit: If you still get no joy, try an app called Dynamic Photo HDR. It can work a little more conservatively than Photomatix and gives you greater control of the edit using hue-shift, gamma-shift and colour vibrancy and saturation.

Thanks for the info and advice everyone!

In Photoshop (CS3 anyway) the photos are created using a layer and a mask. You can modify the mask to your hearts content, but I do have to say that I don't think I have ever seen such a pronounced halo around any of the objects in the images that I have done.

In this case, you could select around the edges of the subject & clone the sky in to the edges of the selection.
Need to remove a background from something?

Good work, Rob! Some of the best HDR I've seen here.

Thanks for the compliment and the link Frank!