HDR is the buzz world in the photography word for quite some years now.
Although it somewhat lost some of it’s shine, ever since we saw a huge load of very artificial looking photos – result of “overcooked” images.

It is very easy to go overboard with HDR and the actual challenge consists of creating high dynamic range images and at the same time retaining a natural look and feel.
You would think it should not be too hard to achieve just that, however going overboard with programs such as Photomatix or HDR Expose happens all too quickly.

Some of the more experienced HDR crowds know about this issue, and if that wasn’t bad enough, artifacts (where foliage or even the camera itself was shaking in between captures) can be a nightmare to get rid of.
One solution is layer-blending parts of the original capture (e.g. the 0 EV shot) over the areas where artifacts have occurred in the original image.

This is quite a time-consuming process, and the results can often still be underwhelming.
The key with HDR is subtlety. Less is definitely more.

Here is a shot from this morning. It’s been created from 3 exposures (-1,0,+1). Subtlety paid off, it may not even look much like a HDR shot, however the digital range is definitely larger compared to a single capture.

If enough people are interested, simply drop me a comment here and I will record a video how I processed this shot in Photomatix.