HDR Attempt

First of all... What is HDR? High dynamic range imaging (HDRI or just HDR) is a set of techniques that allow a greater dynamic range of luminances between the lightest and darkest areas of an image than standard digital imaging techniques or photographic methods. This wider dynamic range allows HDR images to represent more accurately the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to faint starlight.

The two main sources of HDR imagery are computer renderings and merging of multiple photographs, which in turn are known as low dynamic range (LDR)[2] or standard dynamic range (SDR)[3] images. Tone mapping techniques, which reduce overall contrast to facilitate display of HDR images on devices with lower dynamic range, can be applied to produce images with preserved or exaggerated local contrast for artistic effect.
(copy paste from wikipedia =P)

OK... so the word artistic... that's the word... when you look at a HDR image, you will feel that it's real but have some dreamy effect. Something like what we see in fairy tales, stories, etc...

So how did I try to do mine? 1st, I select a photo which I want to process... then I adjust the curves... fixed input at 128. Then the output at 0, save it, then 2nd pic at same input 128 with increment of output of 64, the 3rd at 128-128, 4th at 128-192 and the 5th at 128-255. Then I merge these photos with Photomatix into one HDR photo. You can see the difference before and after effect:


Before


After

You can see that the orange is more orange, green is more green, etc...
Try play around and you might produce some stunning photos... Have fun...