HDR...not a tutorial!

A few of my friends have asked how they can get "that look" in their photos. The top shot is a normal exposure of a back lit subject. Kinda looks dull to me. That's what started me looking for better ways.




The second shot is after treatment with a few Photoshop tools and a cool little HDR program called Photomatix.
Briefly this is the sequence of process.

1. Take 3 shots. One normal, one 2 stops underexposed, one 2 stops overexposed. (We are going to combine the entire exposure range)
2. Take all exposures into Photoshop as layers and align the images if you have hand held the camera. This step is optional but I recommend it.
3. Take into Photomatix and process. (Takes some fiddling to get right)
4. Take the processed image back to Photoshop and correct things like perspective, colour balance, sharpening, cropping etc.
5. That's it. Save file and close. All done.