HDR to the rescue

Willow Flats at Jackson Lake in the Tetons

I gave up some time ago on HDR after being frustrated by the blurry, unrealistic images produced by the programs. You sometimes could rescue them with a lot of clarity and contrast in Photoshop, but it was a hit and miss effort. Then I saw an article on the newer programs, and I tried the HDR Efex Pro, part of the Nik collection now marketed by Google. But you had to buy the expensive collection, which by and large duplicated what I could do in Photoshop, and the HDR results were very contrasty, in addition to producing halos around mountain peaks. That's a big issue for someone who spends so much time in the mountains. Plus the plug-in kept crashing, as in every other attempt. Very frustrating.

Then one article mentioned HDR Express 2 by Unified Color Technologies, saying that it was less contrasty and good for landscapes. And it is not a plug-in, so crashes are not a problem, and it is not part of a costly set. I tried it, and couldn't believe it. It's so natural that no one can tell the difference. At most, I add some clarity and midtone contrast, and that's usually about it. Now I use it all the time, particularly on the shots from my September trip to Grand Teton National Park, where the weather was anything but grand and  the dynamic range was extreme with all those stormy skies. It rescued the trip, and now I use the program for city shots at dawn as well. It's pretty amazing at times the way it can handle moving objects. A car passing through one of the five exposures shows up clearly defined in the final image. Can't ask for anything more.