ok bro - i have gotten what is going on after looking more closely at the pictures - your camera metered those scenes as -2, 0 and +2?
the unedited photo that you posted up earlier, from the 3 files you sent me, seem to be the -2 ev one,apparently. this is why hdr cannot resolve your exposure problem to even it out nicely; and also why you will get the extreme cartoonish effect presented due to the need for excessive highlight recovery.
one thing you need to take note in photography is that when taking photographs in digital format, the SHADOW details are much easier to recover than the highlight detail, i.e. if i get a -2 photograph which is underexposed, it is easier to save it compared to a +2 photograph. what happens to highlight detail is extreme posterisation, i.e. the details become posterlike and fragmented and jagged.. the image at that portion is degraded horribly and you cannot get back the details.
i was hoping that what you posted earlier was the 0 ev picture. that would have been correct, as a -2 ev photograph would surely expose for the OUTSIDE SCENE nicely. +2 ev photograph would expose for the door details nicely. combined in photomatix, for sure can get something swee swee out.
but it turns out it is the -2 ev picture.. in that case, the 0 ev photograph ends up exposing for the door details, and the +2 ev one is totally useless and redundant because everything, including the door is overexposed.. jsut that the door is less overexposed. so what happens is that even with hdr, you cannot get anything out - because the OUTSIDE SCENE details are totally gone. and yes, the best photograph you will get here from all methods available that i can think of with my limited ability is what you ahve done.. probably work on the -2 ev photograph.
hope you get what i mean.. sometimes we have to understand our camera metering system.. if in doubt, just whack the hdr from +3 to -3 with one stop in between , i.e. 7 exposure -3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2, +3. then review on camera screen. if it seems like the details we want are not present in any photograph.. then we need to take even more, then redo it again on the tripod.
from my experience, i think hdr is still ok from the range i have mentioned, which is why i just take it, beyond that the lighting is too extreme, better not to do hdr at all, it means that you cannot really do the picture unless you have elaborate lighting setups to light up the places you want naturally. hope you get what i mean, please feel free to clarify if you don't understand the perhaps jargon-filled post here.
to be fair, the metering is not yoru camera's fault. due to the majority-darker scene it tends to overexpose.. which is why the digital preview is there.. it gives you an advantage over film.. of course in the long run you will know better how to handle your camera's metering when it comes to certain scene, and you don't need to second guess. just shoot what exposures accordingly and underexpose according to metering deliberately.
ur edited pic is miles ahead of ur original pic
