v1 of HDR Shop is still free, I believe... never used it, but I'd like to get into it.
http://gl.ict.usc.edu/HDRShop/

 

I wish this trend would die already. "Keep HDR away from children."

The problem with HDR is, most people don't know how to properly use it, and come out with terrible results. HDR, done right, should look 100% normal.

 

Maybe they don't want their pictures to look 100% normal. Sometimes the effect of over doing HDR can generate a different very cool result.

 

"Normal" looking HDR photos is simply one facet of the HDR topic. I prefer the more normal/realistic approach and as such, don't dress my HDR photos up with lots of tone mapping.

It is however, a lot of fun to look at surreal/unrealistic interpritations of HDR photos (in my opinion anyway) as the effects you can generate with HDR processing are very cool.

As for HDR processing software... I would stick with photomatix, its the best out there IMO. either photomatix as a standalone or or photomatix plugins for CS3 (the CS3 HDR merge is far superior to the tool in CS2), both work great.