i understand that you can take a series of photos say 3 or 5 photos) at different exposures (like -1 0 +1), then combine them is a photo processing program, like photomatix, to bring out the best highlights, midtones, and shadows in one photo. My question is, if you shoot in raw, you have captured the entire range (or most of it anyway) of highlights, and shadows. Why could you not save the raw photo that (supposedly) properly exposed, then in ACR, overexpose a copy of the original by +1 and underexpose a copy of the original by -1, then combine those three photos either in photoshop, or in photmatix?

i understand that you can take a series of photos say 3 or 5 photos) at different exposures (like -1 0 +1), then combine them is a photo processing program, like photomatix, to bring out the best highlights, midtones, and shadows in one photo. My question is, if you shoot in raw, you have captured the entire range (or most of it anyway) of highlights, and shadows. Why could you not save the raw photo that (supposedly) properly exposed, then in ACR, overexpose a copy of the original by +1 and underexpose a copy of the original by -1, then combine those three photos either in photoshop, or in photmatix?