No, no, its only a single exposure. I just sharpened the photo in 16 bit 12.1 mega pixel RAW. Then in a 8 bit jpeg I ran a high pass filter set to overlay and merged. Then I used a alot of dodge and burn. Then I made a duplicate in B&W (channel mixer) then a duplicate guassian blur layer on multiply. Then I set that copy to a new layer on the color copy and set the opacity to 13%. voila.
And yeah, thats more or less what a ring flash looks like. And they are hand holdable (tho heavy) attached via a bracket to the bottom of the camera where a tripod connects. I wouldnt hang something that heavy on a lens.