Most people far overdo the HDR effects and end up with ridiculous images. If you can see that HDR was used, it's overdone. I also believe that normal processing of a correctly exposed shot will yield close to the results you would obtain if applying HDR to multiple images in moderation. Only very, very few subjects would benefit, albeit marginally, from moderately applied HDR.

Frans is right. HDR was developed as a solution for very high contrast situations, where either highlight or shadow details would be lost (or very noisy) with a single exposure. I believe it was developed specifically as a tool for interior architectural photography where that situation occurs frequently, especially when using natural lighting. Using it in other scenes where the correct exposure can be gotten "normally" is really pointless.

Oh, and yeah - freeware is worth every penny you pay for it.

A digital camera has a very limited exposure latitude, about like the better slide films, so some subjects like backlit landscapes, and interiors, as well as night shots can benefit by bracketing an exposure range of identical shots and processing using HDR. The first HDR utility was included in Photoshop, and suffered every kind of problem being first might entail, hard to use and difficult to obtain good results. A much less costly, and more effective and easier to use HDR capability is included in the Corel PaintShop Pro X2 Ultimate, read about it at http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/us/en/Content/1150905725000#tabview=tab1