First HDR please critique

[pacheco78]

Did I over do it? With HDR is it better to have a more natural look, or a more surreal one?

Nikon D90
Aperture priority
f/11.0
ISO 200
Exposure -2, 0, +2
18 mm
Photomatix Pro

[harrypalmer044]

Hi there,
And may I take the chance to welcome you to the site and a great bunch of people here. First of all let me say how much I love North Carolina, I have dear friends living in Greensboro. Now this image, I love the subject and I am starting to enjoy HDR but feel it's over done here leaving it with a "Halo Effect" around the train and the trees. Maybe it just needs toning down a wee bit? I would really love to see the original as that would be a cracking image. Anyway I hope you enjoy yourself here and look forward to seeing more of your cracking work. Thanks for sharing.

[pacheco78]

Thanks! OK so halos are bad...I'll work on that. The good thing about North Carolina is that there are plenty of great subjects for HDR... eventually I'll get it right. Thanks again!

[archersdad]

Nice shot. The only thing that bothers me is the dark sky. I think if you did nothing but lightent the sky yo would greatly imporve the photo.

[pacheco78]

Here is one of the origionals.

[harrypalmer044]

Thanks for adding it, I can see how much work you have done to lift this image and the train out of the shadows. Really nice work, just needs toning down a bit. Well done.

[thatedeguy]

The actual subjects of the shot (train, trees and ground) aren't all that bad. Whether an HDR should be more realistic or not is much like whether chocolate is better than vanilla, that is, entirely a function of who it is you're asking.

What I would attempt if it were me would be to take that shot and bring back the original sky either by mask/layer or through history erasing. Either that or try and clone the colors from the halos to the rest of the sky so it all matches.

[xxpinballxx]

i fixed the size...please keep images within the sites guidelines.
Thanks!

[EOBeav]

Pacheco, would you mind making the three exposures available for me to play around with? I'd like to try to run it through Qtpfsgui and see what I can do with it. This is a nice subject, and I think you've done a great job of capturing it. Let me know!

[pacheco78]

EOBeave...I'm new at posting pics here as you can see I exceeded the limits on my first post. I'd be happy to get the originals to you in RAW. I'm interested to see what the outcome would be from a different perspective. How can I do so? These are pretty large files.