HDRs and a Tutorial

HDRs! For those new to the concept HDR means High Dynamic Range, which in my mind is a good definition as your main objective is to get a large range of exposures for a scene and put them together to get the best of each one.

This can be accomplished with only a few photos, and here's an example from my PSPX4 program:

Recently, I've been trying my hand at making these things, with a little success, but I know I can probably do better.

Here's my 2nd HDR of some clouds (my first stunk too bad, lol).

I rather like it, actually.

And now for my best one so far (at least in my DeviantART watcher's opinion, as I have more favorites on this thing than any of my other photos EVER).
The downsides are that the color is kind of unnatural, and it could have gone more sunset style than I did, but oh well.
Also, I kinda made this a tutorial, but as I'm no pro it's really just showing what I did. Please click it for Full View or view it on deviantart HERE.

After the processing I actually went and did more contrast and noise removal, as well as a few other minor things I don't remember. XD

I hope you like it!

P.S. These are all edits of the same image to resemble actual seperate exposures on only a slight scale. I haven't gotten the hang of actually taking a bunch of shots with a tripod. It would be too slow with my camera for a sunset.

The Many Edits of Watered Grass

Should have posted this waaay earlier, 'cause now I've forgotten how I did it. XD Oh well, I'll make a few notes on what I do recall.
The photos are of a small patch of wheat grass near us, and the edits I did aimed toward a darker "movie poster" style of feel, though I can't really place where I've seen a movie poster of this hue specifically...

 Minor edit of the original (contrast, color, clarity).

 Increased contrast and vividity (I also used a foliage vibrancy plug-in, which is why it's so green).

I took the foliage vibrancy back off and increased the colors for this one, probably stuck it through a filter for sunsets, too, then took some of that color and changed it with another plug-in (Or I just used the Sunshine plug-in to do both effects...).

This is even more contrasted and the color brightness and vividity toned down to make a nice shade of forest green.

Added even more contrast and played with another plug-in (Probably "Tonal Contrast").
Notice the shine on the nearest leaf, it doesn't look like a realistic reflection that much. I'll be changing that in the next pics.

This one is much darker and spooky-ish, lol. However, the reflection still isn't quite right.

This is my last edit (besides my Cold one) and the reflection is much better. The darker hue and toned down color makes good focusing for the water droplets. I lightened this one up a bit compared to the last one which was too dark.

I hope you guys liked some fo them! Which where your favorites? Some of the peope who've seen themalready liked the first vivid ones best.

Edit Me Challenge

Edit Me Challenge Week 1 (of 2012)!
The photo was tough, and I think I did a decent edit, but I missed it.......
I was going to submit on Saturday, but forgot. :-/

Anyway, here's the original and my edit:

I am not good at fixing lighting on my own photos, let alone this one. Look at that brightness! :o

This edit was the hardest I can recall ever doing. I tried SO hard to bring out the face, but failed (however, I see now that I did better than quite a few submissions, and the only one with a really good face uses CS5. Cheater! lol, jk). My methods here used contrasting, hue change, and a lot of small work you won't notice, hehe.

Main advantages of mine over the others? The sun spots!! I manually removed all of the main ones and de-colored the others, which makes it a very good edit in my opinion.
Main drawback? The face. I couldn't bring it out. the gal with Photoshop even made the eyes an awesome blue when you can't even tell in the original photo! :-P

Anyway, I hope to try again soon, and I would like any and all comments about this edit.

Colorful Flame

Have you ever looked at you stove burners in the dark and thought how cool they look? Well, obviously I did anyway, and here's the result, lol. The blue ones are the original color, and the green one is the best quality edit I did. I used PSP X4U's color changer to do the color edits, and the noise removal for sharpening and softening.

 Light Side
The blue really adds to the reflection down on the left corner!

 Dark Side

 Best quality. :-D I shoulda done it yellow so I could say 'neither light side nor dark side' lol. I increased the effect of the contrast with a plug-in. 

 These two are when it was on "low".

Up Next: A ton of edits to a picture of grass! XD