Hand of the Storm - 1st Shot at HDR

[The LoKW]

Hand of the Storm - BackyardHDR by The LoKW, on Flickr

I recently got my PP software and want to learn HDR processing (reminds me of cibachrome back in the day). This is my first go, shot from our back deck across the valley toward the West. I shot at around 3:30p.

Handheld, AEB of -1, 0, +1 I then combined the images in CS5.

Some specific questions for those more experienced:
1. When compiling the images do you typically work in 16-bit or 32-bit? I switched to 32-bit local adaptation on this one.
2. What is your typical range and number of exposures when bracketing? My camera is limited to three on AEB.
3. Do you follow a typical baseline HDR workflow and if so would you be willing to share or provide a reference source?
4. Removing the ghosting was challenging and there is still a lot in the trees (could be wind related I suppose and not straight HDR related). Any suggestions on handling this?

Any other tips from the HDR experts out there greatly appreciated!

Many thanks.

Camera Canon EOS 7D
Exposure 0.013 sec (1/80)
Aperture f/11.0
Focal Length 45 mm
ISO Speed 125
Exposure Bias +4/3 EV
Flash Off, Did not fire

[shruggy63]

I'm not an HDR expert so I can't answer your specific questions but in having a go at it, a question is bothering me: Why take 3, 5, 7 shots with all the problems that brings, when you could just take one RAW shot & 'develop' it multiple times at different exposure settings?
I'll probably be called a dunce for not knowing the answer but it's bugging me...
The clouds are nice in your shot but the foreground trees don't seem to gain much, they're still quite dark (on my monitor).
Sorry for impolitely adding a question to your thread. TFS

[The LoKW]

Thanks much for looking and I'd like to know the answer to your question as well. My uneducated digital guess is that by running with one image and using PP to create subsequent exposures you simply may not have the detail available to pull out as it may not exist?

Also, on the foreground trees: my assumption would be that I would have more versatility in a super high contrast situation like this one (mid afternoon) if I had broadened the AEB to 1.5 or 2 stops. Would this help?

Thanks for any guidance.

[shruggy63]

In an effort to answer my own question I tried to repair a PSD file that was burnt out in parts by HDRing it. It doesn't work, if it's burnt-out, it's burnt-out! Damn you summer skies!
In fact I got a Photoshop dialogue box suggesting that for real dynamic range I should use RAW files, which is obviously helpful...
After I posted earlier it occurred to me that you've chosen the worst scene for an HDR ever. Distance mist & HDR don't really go together? Although you can manipulate mist in Photoshop I think.
Blimey it's a steep learning curve