How can I eliminate or reduce the halo effect on HDR images?

[CorbenLee]

Hello everybody. I just shot this photo today and although it seems to be a good photo overall, it has a black halo around the cranial (helmet). I was wondering if anybody cold offer any advice on how to eliminate or at least reduce this effect without using photoshop. Thanks everyone!



Camera Canon EOS REBEL T1i
Exposure 0.04 sec (1/25)
Aperture f/4.0
Focal Length 44 mm
ISO Speed 1600
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash Off, Did not fire
X-Resolution 72 dpi
Y-Resolution 72 dpi
Software Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.3

I used Photomatix Pro for the HDR, a combination of three photos at two stop increments on the exposure. ISO 1600 was used for the low light environment but I did have some natural light off to the left side through a window. I did a noise reduction in Lightroom and corrected the white balance prior to exporting to Photomatix. Post HDR processing was also done in Lightroom. Just looking for your input on how I can turn a lot of good photos like these into great photos! Thanks very much for your help!

[statichash]

I haven't found that there's just one single adjustment that works for this, but it's more of a combination of settings that need adjustments. It takes a lot of tweaking, but once you get it, you'll know what you need to do on the next photo. To start, you could try adjusting the Light Smoothing, it's usually your best bet.