HDR attempt

Took this a few weeks back. Was really bright outside and wanted to get some of the detail in the shaded area. These were handheld so I know it doesn't line up perfectly, but I tried to get the fence looking good. I tried for the realistic look.
How did I do?

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It's a nice rendering of the fence but the foreground leaves are a tad too bright which tends to pull the eye away.

I'm afraid this won't be of much help, because your image does not show the exaggeration of detail and contrast that often show up in HDR processing.
It's a good image, but a superficial look at it does not give us any clues that it is HDR.
I would like to know which software was used and how many frames were blended together for this result.

There is also another issue here, which is the expectation that a proper HDR treatment will result in a final image that is not blocked up either in the high values or in the low values. Your image doesn't look that bad, but the histogram shows that there are blown out highlights (Red channel is clipping) and blocked up shadows (primarily the green channel).

I use Corel Photo-Paint 11
It's the newest program I have, and I realize it's pretty old. My problem is that I don't have a book for it and the online tutorials no longer work. And I can't afford a new program.
This was three images. I paste them on top of each other and adjust the opacity levels to try and balance the light/dark areas.
I was not really looking for an exaggeration of detail in this picture. I liked the scene but the sun was so bright that it was impossible (at least for me) to get a good balance. And the place is not nearby so I can't just go back anytime, unfortunately.

Jill-of-all-Trades wrote in post #9054131
I use Corel Photo-Paint 11
It's the newest program I have, and I realize it's pretty old. My problem is that I don't have a book for it and the online tutorials no longer work. And I can't afford a new program.
This was three images. I paste them on top of each other and adjust the opacity levels to try and balance the light/dark areas.
I was not really looking for an exaggeration of detail in this picture. I liked the scene but the sun was so bright that it was impossible (at least for me) to get a good balance. And the place is not nearby so I can't just go back anytime, unfortunately.

Aha! Glad I asked. I have arecommendation for you.

Try the free program "Photomatix Pro 3" at http://www.hdrsoft.com

This is the result I got from Photomatix. It is better, but I used one of the preset modes. I would like to be able to do these pictures without presets.

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The last has much better color and texture.

Robert_Lay wrote in post #9055774
Try the free program "Photomatix Pro 3" at http://www.hdrsoft.com

Photomatix is not free. There's a contest running over at photocamel, though, in which two free copies of the pro version are being given away. I've used all of the hdr softwares out there, and photomatix is the easiest to use, I think, and produces the nicest results.

jough wrote in post #9056083
Photomatix is not free. There's a contest running over at photocamel, though, in which two free copies of the pro version are being given away. I've used all of the hdr softwares out there, and photomatix is the easiest to use, I think, and produces the nicest results.

It's free unless you want to be free of the watermark.

Jill-of-all-Trades wrote in post #9056057
This is the result I got from Photomatix. It is better, but I used one of the preset modes. I would like to be able to do these pictures without presets.

I agree that it is better.