HDR preparation

[EOSThree]

Which is the point of HDR.

Sorry I mis spoke here, I meant this is what your camera would record here. I would still bet that this scene is really close to 8 stops and looks remarkable similar to the middle exposure.

Texture, and it probably already has.

Texture is completely different from DR. If it's more detail you are looking for HDR does provide that as a by product. I am speaking of Dynamic Range. It's in the title: HDR

Which is why I would use HDR..

You need this contrast in a scene. To take away all of the contrast yields a flat boring image. It's a balancing act, you need those shadows, that's exactly the reason shooting at high noon is not a good idea, and why shooting at the edge of light makes for much better photography.

Maybe Poker can show us the originals and we can see if more shadow and/or highlight detail was added.

See above statement, from what I can see in the tonality of this scene it is within the capability of most sensors. It may have some true blacks, but true blacks are necessary.

[COLOR="red"]A good save, but it doesn't change my desire to pull as much detail as I can from the rockky canyon scene above.

Once you start pulling stuff out that your eyes know shouldn't be there, you start getting that clownish HDR look.