Do you use PS CC for HDR?

[ColinM]

I cautiously subscribed to CC last year and have made very limited use of it. One of my main reasons was the need to combine multiple shots; specifically I wanted a more reliable HDR tool than I'd had before.

I've only done limited training in the tool so may just need more knowledge, one thing I noticed on a couple of recent shots was artifacts around high contrast areas, esp white or sparkly water.

The two attachments are 100% or greater, so it's not a major issue but seems to be a glitch in the HDR processing that I've never come across with PS CC before, or with the previous tool in PS Elements. Key steps were:
1) Open original NEF files into PS from Bridge: Merge to HDR Pro
2) Choose Ghost removal (which cleaned up these areas a lot, since the water was in different positions in the 2 or 3 shots from each set)
3) Do some basic levels etc in ACR

Is this just an extreme example that it would be unreasonable to expect PS HDR to deal with, or are there further editing steps I could have used to deal with this?

[ColinM]

Here's a single file from the source 3 that I used for comparison

[Bjørn Rørslett]

without being familiar with your software, I suspect the issue is the inability to estimate something which isn't present (sic). For moving water with sun reflecting off the surface, you get intense highlights spots that really cannot be recovered. One image a hotspot is present, next it is gone. Poor software has to make educated guesses as to what really should be there, which of course is almost impossible with a rippled water surface in which reflections occur at very high spatial frequencies. What one could hope for is removal of the chromatic fringes around these hotspots. Do note that the colour fringes aren't necessarily caused by defects in the lens, as the water also adds refraction components to the image.

Assuming a tripod is used, take two exposures one pulled down to keep most of the highlights with detail, another for the surrounding landscape. Remove the purpe fringing from #1, brighten it slightly then add the water parts to #2. My hunch is that this will always be an improvement over automated procedures.

Or you could try out PTGui, which sometimes works pure magic. Other times, it fails miserably.

[ColinM]

Thanks Bjørn,
yes when I stand back and think about this, it's almost like trying to merge shots where people or traffic has moved between the different frames. No way automated processes could make the "right" decision.

As you've suggested I guess the solution is to selectively use certain areas of one frame to replace the under/over exposed areas in the others. I never bothered learning how to "lasoo" different areas & put them into different layers in PS. Perhaps its time to start learning.....