Beginner Merging/Blending bracketed photos

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jason
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Im struggling to get my head around bracketing. I've got my camera set up to take 3 photos, neutral, under and over. I've watched a few Youtube tutorials and one if watched states;
Once imported into LR, I select my 3 photos and click on the "photo" option and "edit in", "merge to HDR PRO in Photoshop".
Once they are merged into a TIFF file, I "save", and then the photo is exported back into LR.
I then edit the TIFF file.
Is this the easiest/correct way of processing, or should I be editing the original 3 files to bring out shadows, reduce blown out areas etc, and then export to PS to merge?
There appears to be many ways of doing this so I'm really confused.
 
@jpgreenwood - you can simplify the work flow by using rightclick -> photo merge -> HDR in lightroom itself. It does a pretty good job these days and in my experience it works best if you only use the over and under exposures and leave out the standard exposure (your mileage may vary!). You then get a raw file you can continue to edit.
 
Thanks. I'll give that a go. Is there any difference in QC by doing it this way?
 
I do it in LR too as what it does is generate a file where the sliders go all the way through the combined exposure latitude (e.g. +/- 10, rather than +/- 4), you can then edit it as normal with the added exposure built in.
 
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You can always tweak the three images in Lightroom first if you want. Then select all three, right click, edit in Photoshop as Layers. This will then stack them on top of each other in Photoshop.
You can then use Layer Masking to paint in bits of the darker or lighter exposures on the middle exposure. It gives you more control over just creating an HDR of the three.
 
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