Thx a lot janab 
You are bang on target !!
I changed the recipe this time. You won't find contrast edges in post-processing this time 
Though i always process images to bring out the original look and main concentration is to cover the high dynamic range which camera cannot cover in one shot. But last year, i was relatively new to processing RAWs plus older version wasn't much of a support.
This year, i hardly used PS for any processing as new version of Adobe Camera RAW is much more Canon RAW file friendly as compared to previous version. So, increasing dynamic range was done the natural way without any layer masking.
