Horribly Delirious Retouching...

...is what I think of HDR. Although, who am I to judge? I myself have learned to post process photographs heavily, to create something like "personal imaginary landscapes". I suppose it is sort of an escapism.

However, I guess High Dynamic Range editing was first and foremost invented to replicate visual perception in photography. Especially in situations like seen in this picture, the eye adapts way better to differences in amount of light than any camera sensor or film does. So, I very well understand the temptation to do something about it.

After my old camera stopped working, I felt tempted to finally buy a camera, which does things I have dreamed of for decades. I remember when I first time saw incredible 360 degree photographs created with some rotating panorama film camera. Unfortunately at that time all of those special cameras were way too expensive for a common amateur photographer.

Now finally thanks to digital photography and incredible software, somewhat everyone (at least in first world) can afford to buy a camera that does good enough panorama straight on camera. And now those affordable cameras also have dynamic range good enough to stretch the range of tones even within a single image. My current camera offers various methods to increase the dynamic range. I can take multiple shots, which then become combined on camera software. But it also gives an possibility to increase the range of tones within any taken picture, even on panorama images.

Here on top you see a picture taken without any "HDR efffect". In the middle, you see image where I used so called "high dynamic mode". And in the bottom is what I did on GIMP editor, to increase the light on dark areas even more.

Not perfect, I admit, but enough for amateur photographer like me. And what comes to HDR images, I think a good HDR is like a good tapestry: You don't notice it. In other words, in a good HDR image you don't notice there's something done to increase the dynamic range.

Finally one advice how to "dig out" tones on any taken digital image:
luminous-landscape.com/contrast-masking
Similar thing was actually done in lab during the film era:
www.freestylephoto.biz/contrast-masking-the-traditional-print

However, as a result of digital contrast masking cited above, you may get rather "flat" looking pictures. This is why I have learned to again increase the contrasts, like often done in HDR retouching. For that I have found this very good Elsamuko's "National Geographic Script" for GIMP:
sites.google.com/site/elsamuko/gimp/ng