On my way to Savannah, Georgia, I stopped to check out a location called Jekyll Island. It's beautiful and offers great potential at sunrise and sunset. Mid afternoon, driftwood and a cloudy blue sky created an opportunity for photography in HDR.
HDR, High Dynamic Range photography reveals more detail in the shadow, highlight and mid-tone areas of a scene. HDR, along with detail, color and exposure enhancing software enables you to create a more compelling image than a single photo straight from the camera. It's wonderful to have these creative options available to the digital photographer!
I made three exposures two stops apart, the "correct" exposure, 2+ and 2-, and used Photomatix to generate an HDR image. The latest version Photomatix 3.2 and the Tone Mapping filter has great starting points for processing HDR images.
You can create an image that has a grunge look by using the Grunge slider, a realistic rendition using the Natural preset, and anything in between. With this image, the "Smooth Skies" preset and a few adjustments to the various sliders created a look that complemented the image. Have fun shooting...
