Ok, so some people wanted to know how you can create an HDR (high dynamic range) image from a single jpeg. Firstly, I have to say you really cannot technically do this because real HDR starts right from the camera - you need to shoot a normal shot, a slow speed shot and a high speed shot at the same aperture so you capture a wide range of light levels that can then be combined into a single image in postwork. But say you don't have that. Well next you hope you shot in RAW format, but say you don't even have that. Say you just have a jpeg. Well you can still do a lot of HDR work and create some neat effects - even just using photoshop. Firstly, what you want is images that have a wide range of light contrast and secondly as clear as you can get (but even that can be violated for artistic effect, as I have done here). The top left image (#1) is the base image. You can see it has lots of light depth contrast but it still looks pretty flat and dull, and it does not have great focal depth. In photoshop I clicked on Image/autocontrast but even that was only marginally useful. Still, every bit helps when you are starting at zero! Image #1. Step 1) Now take your image and in photoshop duplicate the background layer. Then make a levels adjustment on that layer, make it significantly darker than the original. Save it as xxxdarker. Then return the levels to normal and go the other direction; make the layer significantly lighter. Save it as xxxlighter. Just eyeball the levels. If you want to make more levels darker and lighter, say 5, go for it if you have a clear shot with lots of light depth. So now you have 3 files of xxx. Step 2) Go to Files/Automate/Merge to HDR.. Select the three files from the browse menu and then click OK. Photoshop will now merge the files. It will take you to a menu called manually merge EV. Click through all 3 files and then click back one. This will activate the OK button and photoshop will complete the merge. WAIT for it. At first nothing seems to happen and you have 4 layers on a photoshop image - but wait and an HDR screen will pop up. Now that's what we want! Step 4) There will be a drop down menu set called preset in the upper right hand corner. Just work your way through all the menu choices until you find an effect that you like. In this case I went with surrealistic to give the deep tones and painterly effect. Each image you work with will behave differently. Once you have a preset that you basically like, you can fine tune the edge glow, tone and detail settings. BE AWARE - unlike other photoshop menus there is no back out or undo buttons - so scribble down the changes you make as you go. Step 5) Once you have an effect that you like, click save. BE PATIENT, photoshop has a lot of work to do now. It is now converting your settings to a new HDR image. (Image #2) It will be called "untitled HDR2" Save this as a new image. Step 6) At this point you may be done, you may like the effects just as they are. I wasn't, so I copied the HDR2 file and pasted it as a new layer over the old file. I then played with visibility of the HDR layer. I found that 50% gave greater detail in the highlights especially on the railings, the white wash of the boats on the right, on the street lamps and the light splash on pavement (Image #3)In fact the 100% HDR blew out much of these details. However, 50% was not nearly dramatic enough for the water and sky. So once more I pasted the HDR2 file on top so I now had a 100% layer, a 50% layer and the base layer. Then I took a soft eraser and on the top layer I erased all the blown out areas, i.e. the railings, the whitewash boats, the lights and the light splash. Step 7) Image #4. Now I'm done. I've got my dramatic deep dark cloudy sky and my metallic, colorful water, but now I can see some details on the rails and ships and the lights have more definition. The blown out areas on Tower Bridge were beyond repair as they were "shot" in the original. That's it.