Evening HDR

Just a test shot that I thought I’d post. I may be putting up a couple more over this evening. Testing CS5′s “Merge to HDR Pro” function, comparing it to Photomatix Pro. This one is an excercise in rescuing a screwed up frame: I had the color balance set to tungsten when I took this, so everything was hyper-blue. Arguably still is, but that’s the HDR saturation effect.

OK, so here’s the thing: since I could fix this in Bridge, then tell PS to merge it, this came out fairly well. Because of the screw-up, when I tried this in Photomatix, it came out… poorly. I originally trashed it, but PS made a completely useable image.

PS was significantly slower, though.

The HDR effect: it’s really only evident in the lack of noise in the shadows. The light wasn’t that far ranging as to justify needing the HDR effect itself.