Free HDR Softwares

Here's my list of the best free HDR softs. All of them are totally free softwares however some are stripped down and have some functions disabled and have restrictions.

Luminance HDR

PROS
Supports Raw
Merge more than 3 exposures
Auto and manual Alignment
9 tone-mapping algorithm to choose from
Single image tone-mapping
Supports tabs view
Rotate, resize, and cropping
Reads transer exif data
Absolutely free no restrictions and watermarks
Available for Linux, Mac, and Windows

CONS
not very user-friendly
no live view you have to render to see resulting image

Website and Download

Making HDR using a single photo

After (straight HDR not tone-mappped yet)

     HDR or High Dynamic Range imaging is a process of taking multiple photos of a single scene in
different exposure ranges and combining them in post to show all the exposure ranges not usually
captured in normal photos. Usually at least three exposures, the highs, the correctly exposed then one with
the lows. The highs will enhance the bright areas of the photo. The lows will be enhancing the shadows.
 

Before

    HDR photography has created quite a stir in photography world for a few years since it became popular.
Some photographers says its cheating, while on the other side of the fence they say it's just the same as what photographers do on post production. And there are also taking of sides on the pro HDR regarding the overdone HDR's.