HDRI Workflows Exterior and Interior

[eldvatn]

Hi everybody and Happy Easter!

I have been trying to get a better hdri workflow for Exteriors, but I always end up tweaking and tweaking ( gamma for sharper shadows, power, adjusting the exposure in Photoshop) .. never really
satisfied with the result since the kind of become unbalanced looking. I bought a couple of Peter Gunthries, and had to manually adjust the exposure in Photoshop so they wouldn't blow out the scene.
Ive downloaded some freebies from hdrimaps.com and the appear do work straight out of the box, but not as nice as others I found ( that I wish would work better )

I hope we can use this thread to share workflows and links to good sites that work for you. Both exterior and Interiors. I think we are all looking for the the Crispy shadows and and overall well balanced image.

I will start:

Peter Gunthrie / They are over exposed, So I take them into Photoshop, put an Exposure adjustment layer on, tweak different exposures from -2 to around -7, Then I can better control gamma in Octane for sharper shadows.
But this is taking alot of tweaking.. bot with the Camera tag and the Hdri tag..

hdrimaps.com / Have some good ones ( their free collection ) But had to go through alot of them to find a couple that worked for me.

Hope you are game!