Dull images when processed through HDR Pro in Photoshop

[mbflillin]

I am using Photoshop 24.7.0 in conjunction with Lightroom 12.4 to process brackets of 3 images with -2, 0, +2 EV settings. When I process the brackets through Lightroom with the Photomerge/HDR command I get pleasing results as below.

However if I process through Lightroom with the Edit in/Merge to HDR Pro in Photoshop command, by creating a 32 bit image, editing the image with ACR, moving back to Photoshop, and finishing in Lightroom the result is a dull image as shown below.

I have tried processing the images by opening those directly from Photoshop and applying the Automate/Merge to HDR Pro command. However, I get the same dull image as shown above.

Here are 3 screenshots taken during processing.

 There is certainly something wrong here, but could not figure out the solution.

[mbflillin]

Anyone, have you encountered the same issue?