quasi-HDR

I've roughly followed a PhotoRadar / Matt Henry's tutorial onemulating Andrzej Dragan's style (for your reference, links postedbelow), but the end result looks to me more like a pseudo-HDR effect. The two techniques are NOT synonymous, are they?

Anyway, regardless of what it is, I still enjoyed creating it, andsince I'm new to this sort of PS manipulations, I'd be very interestedto find out what you guys think about it (?)

This is the tutorial I've referred to, and here are some examples of Andrzej Dragan's work.

...also, best view the image Large!

To me this looks more like Dragan than HDR.  I am not a big fan of the Dragan effect to begin with, and this one is a little overdone.  The aura on the side of the man's pant leg is common with this effect and is distracting.

Cheers for your feedback, Robert!

Yeah, I do realize that these kinds of effects are not everyone's cup of tea, and I myself sometimes like them and sometimes I don't, depending how it's done.  As for how this one is done, since it was my first attempt, I overcooked it on purpose, to see how far I can push it and what the exaggerated look would be like.

I then made a different attempt, this time going for the pseudo-HDR effect (again, rather strong), and I think I like the other version better.  What are your thoughts on it?  Mind you, the aura on the side of the man's pant leg is there as well; guess I could edit this halo out, but decided to leave it for now.