Aurora Landscapes
I resisted the urge for so long to even consider Aurora HDR because I already had HDR Efex Pro that I had become quite comfortable with. Prior to a Chicago and then Death Valley trip I decided to give it a whirl. There are some awesome presets. I really love the Trey presets as I have been a big fan of his for some time. I really like using the presets as a starting point and then dialing down or dialing up the look I want. Most of the time the tone mapped image is just an overall good beginning point. I used the tone mapped image and just adjusted it to my liking on this photo that I took at sunrise at Zabriskie Point in Death Valley. The original picture does not do all of the colors justice but Aurora does!
Zabriskie Point Sunrise
Here are the three sample images I used to create the final HDR Image:
I think if I had it to do all over again I would probably do 2 stops difference between each photo. As it was I bracketed 1 stop apart. I'm still happy with how the final image turned out.