C&C needed please, first try with interiors

[gipper51]

Thanks again. yes, it makes sense. I did my first photos this way pretty much here
http://www.pbase.com/jps1979/image/132274488
http://www.pbase.com/jps1979/image/132276297

I'm just worried that it will take too much time trying to do it with furniture in the way, etc. And may not that well when you have sharp edges of windows...But I'll give it a shot.

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http://www.infiniteartphotography.com
http://www.pbase.com/jps1979/galleries

What you can charge will largely determine the time you can spend on image editing. Professional shots for clients like architects, advertising agencies, etc. often will have the budget to allow for such manipulation. If you end up doing lots of run-and-gun type work where you're charging realtors $100 to deliver a dozen images, spending more than a few minutes per image will not be feasible.

When I do the images you see in my interiors gallery below, those image usually have 30-60 minutes of editing each. They're hardly world class images, but even with careful scene arrangement, lighting setup and capture, they still need this much time in Photoshop, most of it's spend getting colors dialed in and cloning out little imperfections.
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Newest galleries:
http://www.pbase.com/gipper51/portraits
http://www.pbase.com/gipper51/architectural
http://www.pbase.com/gipper51/interiors

 

[akjos]

I know...It's almost not worth the effort for the money you mentioned....

I spent about 5 mins total in hdr software and then 10-15 max in photoshop and it still feels like forever when you have to do dozen or more shots fairly quick .
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http://www.infiniteartphotography.com
http://www.pbase.com/jps1979/galleries

 

[chris_uk]

To make it work you need to get to a stage where you spend a maximum of ten minutes in total per image and ideally closer to five.

 

[Luke Kaven]

I realize from looking at these that there is one difficulty you are having with your HDR, and I have a suggestion.

To my eye, it looks like you are capturing your RAWs using a "normal" or "standard" tone curve. You would not want to do this. You want to use the "linear" or "neutral" tone curve (depending upon the capture software you're using). You need to have the linear numbers coming straight off the sensor without any tone curve skewing the data. You need just the good clean data.

Also, along with lowering the "strength" parameter to about 30-35, you might like to apply just a bit of highlight smoothing and perhaps just a little shadow smoothing.

 

[Luke Kaven]

To make it work you need to get to a stage where you spend a maximum of ten minutes in total per image and ideally closer to five.

It depends upon the client. There are a whole range of approaches where investing more time and money will yield higher quality where it is needed. The client can decide how much effort they think the images are worth. Don't underestimate the value of an experienced team that take an entire day, but delivers the ethereal shot.