Example HDR results from alternative software (Page 4): Agree. Instead of trying to embellished this nonsense as "an experiment" the essence of the argument here should be around how...

chaman

mikegreenwald wrote:

This is an erroneous use of HDR, and the bracket margins much too small. Also, for quality HDR, a tripod is essential.

Your first shot, PP with use of contrast, dehaze, and saturation modifications would have done a better job by far than the so-called HDR.

Agree. Instead of trying to embellished this nonsense as "an experiment" the essence of the argument here should be around how to get the proper exposure and the PP involved to get a nice image. This is a clear example of trying to fly before knowing how to walk.

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

When looking at the photo and forgetting about HDR, just examining the photo.... well it is about nothing... there is boat far left and one far right....The story here is which boat was to be photo graphed without wasting SD card memory!!! There is NO SUBJECT in the photo... no photo of something... empty space bound by two boats. Part of a boat and garbage far away on left and a boat which would have been the focus of the photo with a tel lens on the right. The boat on the right has the mooing cut off.. But I commend rfcoakley for his pushing himself to grow.. and he generated a lot of discussion which has grown all of us.

rfcoakley action shots in http://static.uglyhedgehog.com/upload/2017/8/14/623511-contactsheet_006.jpg are good ones and when he combined three action shots in one he did an excellent job.

chaman

dpullum wrote:

When looking at the photo and forgetting about HDR... (show quote)

Well I would not classify those as excellent. They are good family photos though. They look slightly underexposed and are not sharp. I would venture to say that WB seems off too, too bluish and would benefit from some warming up. The last one in the series does not make sense either since the camera decided to focus in the background. I would have stopped in the second one which tell the whole story. That is a series of photos, not three shots in one, which is misleading and incorrect.

Shootist Loc: Wyoming

Before paying for what I consider a high price for an HDR program (Photomatrix) try Fusion. It is a program that was developed by a guy from the Balkan area. It was free but now he charges $25.00. I use it sometimes on single exposures when I need to bring out detail in highlights, shadows or both. If you expose carefully enough to get potential detail in either highs, shadows or both this little program can do an outstanding job. I suspect I could get the same results in GIMP but the automatics in Fusion can save a lot of time in PP. It is also very good at multiple exposure HDR. I had the Photomatrix trial on my computer for about a year but was never impressed enough to drop the dollars it cost.
I took the liberty to download your base image and did a quick run on Fusion. (I deleted it right afterwards) For a very quick adjustment it looked pretty good.

rfcoakley wrote:

I did some shooting in Newburyport, MA yesterday a... (show quote)

LoneRangeFinder Loc: Left field

chaman wrote:

Well I would not classify those as excellent. They are good family photos though. They look slightly underexposed and are not sharp. I would venture to say that WB seems off too, too bluish and would benefit from some warming up. The last one in the series does not make sense either since the camera decided to focus in the background. I would have stopped in the second one which tell the whole story. That is a series of photos, not three shots in one, which is misleading and incorrect.

I wouldn't either. As Chaman says here: the focus point shifts to the background in the third shot.

jackpi Loc: Southwest Ohio

rfcoakley wrote:

I did some shooting in Newburyport, MA yesterday a... (show quote)

You would be better off learning how to use the capabilities of Lightroom more fully. All of the HDR images you posted are deficient.

Robert Bailey Loc: Canada

To summarize:
1. Use a tripod.
2. Get a wide range of exposures- I do 5 shots 2 stops apart.
3. If the image is not high contrast you don't need to use HDR.