Water Street
New Bedford, MA
June 24th, 2010

Looks like a great spot for HDR with the texture of the street and colors of the buildings.
This shot looks like it is straight out of Photomatix and could benefit from curves, blacks and a bit of contrast.
As for the 'light smoothing', are you using the slider or the buttons? The light here has a bit of a chopped up quality to it that seems to be most prevalent with using the buttons for that option.
If you have a wide enough lens, i would suggest shooting this perfectly level to try to get rid of some of the distorted perspectives.
E

Thanks for the input E! Much appreciated and thanks for looking.

I actually did treat this after processing in Photomatix to my liking. I kept the light choppy in sections, because well, it was! It was taken sunset and the sun was setting to the left of me causing some shadows on the building from the buildings across the cobblestone street. I am also a fan of wide angle distortion and I always keep that. I don't mind at all if the buildings tend to appear as they lean as well as the barrel and lamp post on the lower right ;)

I like the wide angle distortion too, but I'm not a fan of the really choppy light. I like the generally painting-like effect you've got going, but if you'd waited another 5 minutes so the whole facade was in shade I think it would have made the buildings much more uniform. As it is the difference between the line of sunlight along the tops of the eaves and the lower facades is kind of wierd looking.

Looks like a great HDR shot. The one thing that bothers me is that the barrel in the bottom left looks wavy or stretched or squished, can't quite put my finger on it. But other than that I love the way the buildings and sky look.

I love the look, almost like it could be in a superhero movie, like it could be a shot from Watchmen
I think the barrel might be a little to distorted though. To me, the distorted look of the buildings looks okay, till you see how distorted the barrel is