32bit/16bit EXRs has much wider dynamic range than RAW
Indeed, it's this. Quite often people assume that HDR from bracketed photos are somehow different than HDR straight out of framebuffer. It's because:
-Many people bracket jpegs or tiffs that already have camera curve applied in HDR photomerging, so the resulting HDR (before tonemapping algorithm gets applied) already looks richer and crispier.
-HDR Softwares offer local-tonemapping instead of global tonemapping (or both). Imho Local-Tonemapping is the ugly shit from 2000 that I am happy has died, it looks terrible even in moderation.
-Highlight compression in any raw editor is still much superior to Reinhard (or the broken filmic) in Corona. It's nice curve that doesn't flatten midtones to mushy ugliness.
To get around the limitations that common raw editors and HDR editors have in regards to importing linear 32bit files...the "get-around" of manually re-saving HDR from framebuffer into individual brackets is as old as CG-Architect forum itself :- ).
I have seen this advice 10 years ago...
It's absolutely stupidity, but if you want to do it, you also need to modify exif of those files or have HDR editor that enables you to manually specify the EVs of your "fake" brackets.
The outdated and forgotten PS plugin ArionFX enables you to do all of this directly. It has every single global and local tonemapper...except for filmic.
The best approach currently used by interior photographers is to use minimal highlight compression, zero HDR, and do lot of manual tweaks (gradient exposure, compositing exposures with masks,etc..).
This gives natural look. To simulate this from Corona, never use more than 2 in HL. Yes it's bright..you need to the the rest in smart ways, just like photographers. It's identical.
So-called "HDR" (drastic local tonemapping) was never good looking.
