HDR photography?

Question

so pretty much ive just recently been messing around with HDR and stuff, but i dont know if im headed in the right direction...i want my pictures to be really detailed

Kinda like this:

http://flickr.com/photos/johnmueller/215...

http://flickr.com/photos/markisy/2465921...

http://flickr.com/photos/bratan/44067574...

but mine looks super surreal like this:

http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s256/...

(this is one of mine)

i used Photomatix for that one, and ive heard its better than Photoshop CS3 as far as tone mapping and stuff..

if there are any better programs, wut are they?

and wut are the best settings to use (as far as strength, saturation, light smoothing...etc.)

i want mine to look like the top 3, with just alot more detail and color and stuff

any help is really appreciated

Answer 1

Your links are broken, so it's kind of hard to tell.

Each photo is going to have it's own best setting.  It's just something you need to discover what you like best given a particular type of scene.

Answer 2

Photomatrix is one of the top programs, if not the top program. The main thing is to get a good variance in the exposures. You will need to experiment with some images to find the best settings to use.