I tried to make a few more HDR photographs.
The first one is of my house- with the Christmas lights up:
![xMas_Lights_1](https://i0.wp.com/static.flickr.com/2119/2082043431_e0a5fdb889_b.jpg)
The above was done with the directions from Bjorn 3D’s web site and using a 100px masking for the layers in Photoshop. I shot all images from a tripod at f/7.1, ISO100 and 20s, 10s, 5s, 2.5s, 1s and 1/4s exposures.
The results were pretty good, but I wasn’t completely happy with it so I went through the process again and made a 50px mask:
![xMas_Lights_2](https://i0.wp.com/static.flickr.com/2151/2082827562_8928a2b834_b.jpg)
This made the shadows on the columns look a little strange, but made the lights not so glaring.
I also tried the same procedure with my Christmas tree (only the lights on it so far- I still need some time to put the ornaments up) and using a 75px mask (in-between the settings I tried on the prior to pictures):
![xMas_Tree HDR #2](https://i0.wp.com/static.flickr.com/2380/2082825788_87cc6f22f4_b.jpg)
During the creation process I noticed that the ‘light’ version of the JPG looked pretty cool:
![xMas Tree HDR](https://i0.wp.com/static.flickr.com/2146/2082824940_20f3243d07_b.jpg)
This one looks a little more surreal; I think this is my favorite of the four pictures.
I may try running the first set of photos through the ‘Merge to HDR’ setting of Photoshop and see what it looks like…