My First HDR @ The Park

Here is my first attempt at pseudo-HDR, a picture of my Fiance and dog @ the park. From the original, it is a little too fake (surreal??) for me, but I just wanted to have a little fun and experiment with it. I think I went a little overboard, hehe...oh well. I will try a real HDR attempt in the future. Anyways, just wanted to share.

Attempt #1:

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doesn't do much for me

I didn't expect it to be great for the 1st time (new to this HDR stuff), but care to share any tips on what I can do to improve?

Cosmetically, I think the 1st attempt looks betetr than the 2nd. I don't know too much about HDR technique since I am trying to learn myself.

First one looks good imo - I like that it has a natural look and not overdone. Perhaps boost the contrast a little.

Here's another one, this one was taken when I was in Vietnam

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I think they look great.

I'm not sure if they're HDRs, however. How many shots did you use for each?

The shot of the park with the buildings in the background is great, but the sky is not. It should be blue. I would either reshoot or take a picture of a blue sky and, using layers, put it in the background. This isn't an "honest" approach, I suppose, but it does need a blue sky in the photo. The sky you currently have is washed out and gray.

Your pictures seem to have been processed using Topaz Adjust. Am I right?

I suspect the vietnam pic was taken on an overcast day.

HDR is very subjective; whatever looks good to you, is right. Try taking your final HDR image, and layer it with the mid-exposure image (in Photoshop, Gimp, whatever). Then vary the opacity of the layers so you can fine-tune the amount of HDR you like, without having to redo the whole process.

I think HDR has a certain "neatness" to it when you first figure out how to do it but the fact remains, you have to have a great shot for it to be a great HDR. In other words HDR doesn't take a so-so shot and make it amazing.