I know this has already been mentioned a few times, but I wondered if anyone here has actually used Photomatix?

http://www.hdrsoft.com/index.html

They have a fully operational demo of both the Pro and plugin versions available for free download (but they put a watermark on the image).

here are some hdr images that i did with photomatix + tonemapping.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/handmadegod/202291874/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/handmadegod/214493306/

This is amazing!
Would something like this work out for portraits?
Does anybody have experience with it?

HDR is tough for Portrait shots, but it can be done of you set your camera to auto-bracket.
But you better pray the mdodel doen't get to antsy.

Chris