I cant say I’m the biggest fan of HDR processing in the world. In most cases I think people see it as an easy win or an easy way to make a photo look dramatic without much effort. I always find myself looking at terrible examples of over use, but people still seem to love the ‘wow’ effect it can give to a photo.
That said, there are also some very impressive uses of the technique by some of the pro’s, and I think like most things moderation is the key. Not just using HDR processing on an image, but to using it to compliment your other post processing techniques I believe is the answer to the best use.
This is an example that I created in CS5 using the new HDR features combined with some other filter, blur, curve & level tweaks.
this snake has been de-fanged the guy looks cool