I went to the Kenmore Camera Expo on Sunday and sat in a session to learn about my new Canon EOS 7D.  While in there, I heard about high dynamic range (HDR) imaging.  After a bit of search on the Internet, I found this link which explains how to do HDR in Adobe Lightroom, my tool of choice for now.  The general operations in Lightroom are as follows:

• Set recovery to 100%
• Set fill light to 100%
• Set contrast to 100%
• Set clarity to 100%
• Set vibrance to 100%
• Reduce saturation but keep some color
• Adjust the white balance
• Drop the exposure
• Bring up the blacks
• Adjust the colors using the saturation sliders
• Use the tone curve to boost up highlights and drop down shadows
• Use noise reduction if needed with luminence and color at 30

Here’s an example of the results of this technique:

This was shot with my previous body, the Canon XTi with my 17-85 walking around lens.

UPDATE: I just discovered Photomatix, a tool which does this.  I’m going to download it and give it a try.

Admittedly a little edited, but I liked the result.  I’m experimenting with shooting in RAW instead of JPEG and this is one of the pictures I took.  I did a bit with the color afterwards to make the colors more vivid.  I especially like the effect on the windows behind the dragon.  This photo was shot in the international district in Seattle.