Trying out more compositing and several other photoshop techniques

Took three shots trying to frame this image exactly the same but with three stops difference in exposure. Only ended up using two frames, and combined them in a composite. Blending the "seam" between the two was difficult. Ended up with one every flatly lit frame, which I proceeded to mess around with for quite awhile to get color, contrast and general tones. Finally added a top layer to give some texture, but next time I'll save more intermediate frames for comparison. I still have the original footage. I'm a bit of a hard sell on texture layers in general, but I can see a lot of possibilities in using layers for various effects, including color shifting. Back in the old days a double exposure was pretty haphazard. Layering is a lot more precise, if you want it to be, but can also have a bit of a randomizing effect.