HDR Do's and Dont for landscape

[jjj]

I have not been to this particular place but to my eye, the original image looks like it has a faded/flat red cast across it. Photoshop's version is a bit different from the last two; I don't know which reds are closer to the actual rocks but all of the corrected versions look better to my eye.

Here's a thought. If you are taking photos in a place where the light is generally bouncing off reddish surfaces, what colours are things likely to be?
The 'faded' look is one look HDR can have or that may be Peter's preferred style. The contrast in the second shot looks more 'natural' in the sense that's what photos usually look like if that are not HDR, though the the sky looks a bit odd with the colour it has now become.
Which is the 'best' shot is more a matter of taste than 'accuracy'.

[plugsnpixels]

Of course Peter would be the final judge, but as a member of his "audience", I am seeing a red cast that distracted me. That's all, no biggie. If it were my work I would display a corrected version, but I am only speaking for myself. This art of photography is very subjective, as we all know.

[PeterAit]

Of course Peter would be the final judge, but as a member of his "audience", I am seeing a red cast that distracted me. That's all, no biggie. If it were my work I would display a corrected version, but I am only speaking for myself. This art of photography is very subjective, as we all know.

I think I see the problem. You prefer a "neutral" image, whereas I prefer an image that looks like the scene. And the scene, because of the red rocks, had a bit of a rosy tinge to it. It's not a color cast or color imbalance, it's part of what made that canyon special. If you took a picture during a glorious red and orange sunset, would you try to "correct" the image to get neutral color? I sure wouldn't. It's the special quality of the light that makes some images special. Anyway, thanks for your input.

[plugsnpixels]

Thanks Peter. I'm curious if any of the 3 "corrections" were true (or truer) to the scene.

[rgs]

I think we sometimes attach processing to an image that mirrors our emotional reaction to it. Not that that is wrong - just not necessarily neutral. Painters do it all the time, and with the tools we now have, I see no objective reason we shouldn't. I can imagine subjective reasons but that is a different discussion entirely. Personally I like the third version. I like the red and the separation of the leaves in the shadow to the right. I can imagine being there and seeing that shot even if it wasn't what was really there.

[plugsnpixels]

Richard, if you're counting from the left and including the original, that is the iCorrect version. In the screenshot I just made you can see where I activated the Smart Color mode and then made further tweaks by manually clicking on two neutral areas (the dark shadow of the rock at lower left and the cloud) to address color cast, which is being reported as a lot of red cast and some green. The preview image shows the corrections, not the original. IMO the rocks are still properly red (they didn't go grey) and the overall images looks more bright, though that "cloud" really annoys me ;-).

BTW, I often use iCorrect to color-adjust my own images since I like the easy click-on-neutral area results. I am not a left-brained by-the-numbers color correction person...

At any rate, this is developing into an interesting discussion about image perception and correction!