Question - How is HDR used/applied?

[SilverPenguin]

And then save it as an 8-bit JPEG

No...not confusing...you then use your software to blend the images to reproduce them in to a single one that contains the light variations and that your monitor can display. So it looks like any normal photo, just it required some trickery to obtain. Thats the whole point of blending techniques and HDR software lmao - not to create these funky toon town digital fantasy worlds which is just a by product of the real point of the software.

Its really not confusing at all once you understand what a HDR photo actually is

(by you, I mean 3/4 of the internet, not YOU you)

 

[Howard]

Use a tripod if you're gonna take three seperate shots and not fake it by adjusting one RAW image, otherwise you WILL move the camera. It's impossible to hold it perfectly still to achieve a decent-looking HDR

 

[Amp34]

I think it just makes people lazy at processing and learning photoshop as if the info is there in the original photo you can restore it, without turning it in to a surreal shot (unless thats your aim of course)...lol

Its all down to taste at the end of the day. I like people to see the photo first not the processing, if the processing is the first thing people notice then there is too much IMO.

Yeah, there is that, but there are some scenes that can look better in HDR (even when the original image was LDR), just like some can look better in B&W. It doesn't need to be surreal either, although surreal can be good too. HDR at the end of the day is just another processing technique, you can use it like a more advanced form of blending or as a style on it's own. As you said it's all about style and taste, some people like it, and some don't, which the same can be said for B&W.

 

[Amp34]

Use a tripod if you're gonna take three seperate shots and not fake it by adjusting one RAW image, otherwise you WILL move the camera. It's impossible to hold it perfectly still to achieve a decent-looking HDR

It's not impossible, you can create perfectly sharp images without using a tripod, you need a steady hand and a little bit of luck but it's easily possible.

 

[Sic]

I saw that

lol, I was just about to say "bit unfair to pick on him when he's not really active anymore"!

for me, HDR is appropriate on an image where it's not possible to adequately expose areas of the image naturally. For example, if you have a scene where the sun is quite overbearing and is causing the foreground to appear black, then you'd shoot to correctly expose the sky in one shot, the foreground in another and a midpoint in the third. then throw them at photomatix. That's obviously quite a simple example but you get the idea.