“I figured the DR would be more of a dynamic range compression, and it was darkening some areas and brightening others”
Nik, you’re on the right track here. The DR setting on Fuji is meant to preserve highlights. DR100 is basically default, and the exposure is whatever the photographer takes the image at. DR200 will underexpose the highlights by 1 stop…..shadows and midtones will be shot at what the exposure triangle is set at, but highlights will be shot 1 stop below that (maybe that’s not the right term….highlights will be rendered(?) 1 stop below). DR400 is the same thing, but 2 stops for the highlights.
It’s primarly meant for the in-camera jpegs, but it also gets applied to the RAF files. I wonder if rendering this is an issue that all raw processors face. If I get some time I’ll see if I can test this with Lightroom.