HDR Effect?

Do you remember my post about HDR?

Well, since then, I've doing more researching and reading about HDR.

And I've found out how to simulate the HDR look in Lightroom.

I took some photos of beautiful sunsets while on a trip last week,

and I decided to try something.

 You see this photo? The sky is a lovely color. but the waves are so dark...what if I lightened the photo so that the waves are exposed properly...?

Ta da! But look at the poor sky. Washed out. :( So much for that.

But then I remembered something. Lightroom has this awesome tool called "adjustment brush".

You can set exposure, clarity, sharpness, saturation, etc, and then "paint" it on the photo wherever you want it. 

So:

I took the adjustment brush and lowered the exposure just a tad. 

Then I painted over the top quarter of the photo, where the sky is. 

See? It is darker. The photo is way more balanced, and it has an HDRish look to it!

Isn't that awesome!?

Naturally, I went crazy with it, and had a ball editing these next photos. :D

Those stars made my day :)

Okay, now you go try! It isn't hard. If you don't have Lightroom, don't despair. Look around a bit, and you might find other options. I've heard good things about GIMP, a free photo editing program. 

I'd love to see your edits! 

(Feel free to leave a comment with a link. :))