I was preparing a similar file with PhotoFlow 
, but using a scene that’s a little more representative of something a photographer might actually point their camera at. So I’ll just go ahead and post my screenshots:
Raw processed using 0 exposure compensation - a bit of the metal is above 1.0, but it’s not clipped:
Adding four stops of exposure compensation brings most of the image up to more or less match what I saw when I took the photograph, but of course the highlights are blown out. However because PhotoFlow operates on unbounded/unclamped/unclipped channel values (choose your own preferred terminology), the channel data is still available for further processing:
My contention is that any photographer can get a good idea of what they might want to do with an image with a similar dynamic range, by examining both the “compressed” and the +4 ev versions of the image as shown above. But moving along to do some nice tone mapping, here’s the result of using PhotoFlow’s filmic tone mapping:
The ony problem left to resolve in terms of making a final image is that part of the brass fixture on the lamp is still blown out, which a Levels adjustment can handle:
Personally I’d put a mask on that last Levels adjustment to confine it (as much as possible without introducing any odd transitions) to the brass fixture.
If someone handed me an image editor that only allowed to see my image as already processed by some tone-mapping, I’d say “thanks, but no thanks”.