First attempt at HDR

This is my 1st attempt, the sun was too far west to throw any shadows though.
In the morning I'll try it again as the sun is rising.

http://backup.cambridgeincolour.com/...Image101-1.jpg

http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/g...sul/Image2.jpg

Looks good Jack - just remember that when you've done the HDR merge, you still need to then process it like you would any other shot (set levels etc). In this case it's still looking a bit light, so you might want to chuck on a levels layer and bring the black clipping point in a bit more (or use a curve) (or a bit of burning).

Ok, here's a second attempt. Tried your recomendations. :).
Your thoughts

http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/g...sul/Image1.jpg

the highlights look a touch dark to me (but might be my eyes). I like the highlights in the first as they seem just right. Personally I'd go for an s shape curve to keep the highlights very bright and perhaps bring the bottom (ie shadow) curve down a bit more to bring the blacks up so you get hard contrast with deep blacks but without bringing highlights down.

Perhaps low % usm sharp (wide radius) to add a bit more local contrast to things liek the leaves and tiles. I think it will be spot on after that, it's just the thing with HDR is due to the nature of it it kills local contrast somewhat so a tiny bit more aggressive pp than usual is often needed IMO.

Again this is more my taste and might not be to your liking, apologies in advance if that's the case :)

Hi Jack,

Apologies for taking this long to get back to you. Here's my "take" on it - basically just a levels layer (raising black clipping point & tweaking mid-tones), slight desaturation, and a little hand dodging/burning.

I'm not happy with the trees on the left, but think the rest looks pretty optimal.

http://www.pbase.com/cjsouthern/imag...1/original.jpg

There are sooooo many ways to skin this cat :)