Been going over my photos from the Zoo trip and decided to do an experiment with HDR. Taking a single properly exposed photo and doing some tone mapping in Photomatix Pro. Here is the before and after.
Standard Image no Tone Mapping
Image with Tone Mapping
Does one look any better than the other?
Photography by Steve daPonte 
This a definite improvement. The brightness and color tones work much better. There is a bit too much saturation in the greens & yellows, I think. Also, if the brightness of the rocks was turned down a touch, the duck (as the central subject) would stand out better.
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Thanks so much Paul for the input. I will try that and also do some work on it in On One Focal Point.
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I’m usually not thrilled over HDR pictures but sometimes they are really nice, this is a good example of that 🙂
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I agree with Paul – the duck looks much better, but the background elements are a little too strongly colored. Thanks for doing this.
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