Editing for SDR and HDR output

[bfrische]

The HDR photos are not much brighter, and the difference is sometimes quite subtle. If you see a huge difference in brightness, then the problem is on your side.

Edit: Could you please share what kind of display you use to view HDR images?

m3 macbook pro.

i cant tell much difference except the hdr ones are a bit brighter. the most pronounced difference is in the cloth.

 

[darinb]

The HDR photos are not much brighter, and the difference is sometimes quite subtle. If you see a huge difference in brightness, then the problem is on your side.

Edit: Could you please share what kind of display you use to view HDR images?

m3 macbook pro.

i cant tell much difference except the hdr ones are a bit brighter. the most pronounced difference is in the cloth.

Yes, the examples in that link show only a subtle difference. The best move is to look at the other links I posted or to just try it yourself--grab a few RAW files and download a free trial of Lightroom if you don't already have it and see what it all looks like (assuming you have an HDR monitor (OLED, mini-LED, etc).

--Darin

 

[darinb]

>>I went into display settings and turned on the HDR option.<<

It's not entirely clear to me that your monitor is a "true" HDR monitor--there are a variety of standards, soem of them not what we are talking about. Just having a screen go brighter is not what we are talking about. Is it an OLED or mini-LED? If not, it's probably a "fake" HDR mode--the HDR screens I have don't have HDR modes or buttons, they are HDR all of the time--just not fully utilized without an HDR signal.

In any event, if you like to view your monitor at very low dimming levels then HDR won't do you much good, I would think, since the dimming has probably reduced the screen's dynamic range lower than SDR--thus HDR would be of no benefit?

--Darin

 

[SrMi]

BenQ 4k 32".

Do you know how many nits are supported? Are you using Windows or Mac? Linux does not seem to support HDR output mode yet.

Don't know what a 'nit' is and I'm on Ubuntu although I also have windows and mac machines I rarely use.

You cannot correctly see images generated for HDR. That is why you have a twisted opinion of what it is and what it does.

 

[SrMi]

BenQ 4k 32".

Do you know how many nits are supported? Are you using Windows or Mac? Linux does not seem to support HDR output mode yet.

Don't know what a 'nit' is and I'm on Ubuntu although I also have windows and mac machines I rarely use.

A nit is a unit of brightness. Every HDR modern monitor should have that number in their specs.

 

[SrMi]

I watched the video.

What I learnt from it is that HDR screens have a much stronger backlight which means that highlight tones can be rendered much brighter, thus rendering bright specular highlights with detail.

And color, which is sometimes lost in SDR. If you prefer muddy highlights, SDR is the way to go.

As I said before, this sounds like a disastrous move to me as I already find the backlights on standard monitors too bright in the highlights leading to viewing fatigue.

The brightness of the highlights is under the user's control. You can make them hurt your retina or add quality to your images. The biggest challenge remains to prevent highlights from getting too bright while keeping the HDR benefits. However, all of this is described in the Adobe document by Eric Chan.

And this is with the brightness setting on my monitor reduced to 18 and the contrast to 20. HDR sounds like the opposite of what I want to see in a monitor. Ideally, we would have monitors with dull highlight tones with reduced highlight brightness like a print, but that still possessed clear highlight tonal separation in a compressed form that allows the the brain to subsequently expand this out to give a plausible full range perception.

The following is just a pure guess on my part, because I know little about monitor tech, but I suspect the need for HDR monitors occurs because standard monitors do not have the same capability that prints do to compress the highlight tones non-linearly without losing the perception of tonal separation. And this means that the only way to create realistic looking highlight tonal separation on a monitor is to increase the highlight brightness dramatically.

I see monitors as a poor way to display quality images, all artificial punch and drama with no subtlety. It's not how I want to view images. instead of pushing HDR monitor solutions, let's develop reflected light e-ink to have the detail and tonal range of a print. Then we would have a monitor that would allow us to enjoy the relaxed, gentle experience of the reflected light print with the convenience of being able to easily change the print on display. Backlit monitors are going in the wrong direction IMO.

 

[SrMi]

The HDR photos are not much brighter, and the difference is sometimes quite subtle. If you see a huge difference in brightness, then the problem is on your side.

Edit: Could you please share what kind of display you use to view HDR images?

m3 macbook pro.

i cant tell much difference except the hdr ones are a bit brighter. the most pronounced difference is in the cloth.

Yes, the examples in that link show only a subtle difference. The best move is to look at the other links I posted or to just try it yourself--grab a few RAW files and download a free trial of Lightroom if you don't already have it and see what it all looks like (assuming you have an HDR monitor (OLED, mini-LED, etc).

You should see better sky color in my examples, but yes, there is a slight difference. I do not like HDR photos with bright highlights or Benz's processing style in SDR and HDR. Hence, I tune the images for quality, not effect. I am grateful for Benz's article and his evangelism of HDR output.

In LrC, I always change the limit from four to two stops when processing and never clip. Occasionally, I have to mask large and bright areas. I also regularly have to "fight" with the HDR part of the curve.

But everyone should develop in the way they like it. My processing style makes HDR obvious only when compared to SDR.

 

[DavidMillier]

>>I went into display settings and turned on the HDR option.<<

It's not entirely clear to me that your monitor is a "true" HDR monitor--there are a variety of standards, soem of them not what we are talking about. Just having a screen go brighter is not what we are talking about. Is it an OLED or mini-LED? If not, it's probably a "fake" HDR mode--the HDR screens I have don't have HDR modes or buttons, they are HDR all of the time--just not fully utilized without an HDR signal.

In any event, if you like to view your monitor at very low dimming levels then HDR won't do you much good, I would think, since the dimming has probably reduced the screen's dynamic range lower than SDR--thus HDR would be of no benefit?

I'm new to this stuff and am going purely on what I'm reading in this thread so who knows. I can only report what I find:









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[SrMi]

One additional thought--

In my mind, this technology marks the divergence of paper-based images and screen-based images.

In the past, especially in these parts, screen-based images were considered secondary to print-based images, even though only a small number of photographers made prints of their images.

But you can see the point--the screen image looked more or less like the print image and so one was just a version of the other.

With HDR the screen image is no longer a version of the paper image, it looks and feels like something altogether different...at least for some images. Of course, images with limited tonal range will look identical in SDR and HDR, only if the images go beyond the SDR tonal range will there be any difference. But when there is a difference that difference can be extraordinary.

I agree.

The HDR images deliver dynamic range, contrast, detail, and color that cannot be achieved with display or print. A beautiful print will always be something special, but the display version is no longer inferior but stands on its own.

It will take time for HDR to become very usable. I am especially missing options to have one image that shows properly as SDR and HDR.

In the meantime, I am will develop every good image for SDR and HDR, since only HDR can unlock the full potential of a raw file.

 

[SrMi]

>>I went into display settings and turned on the HDR option.<<

It's not entirely clear to me that your monitor is a "true" HDR monitor--there are a variety of standards, soem of them not what we are talking about. Just having a screen go brighter is not what we are talking about. Is it an OLED or mini-LED? If not, it's probably a "fake" HDR mode--the HDR screens I have don't have HDR modes or buttons, they are HDR all of the time--just not fully utilized without an HDR signal.

In any event, if you like to view your monitor at very low dimming levels then HDR won't do you much good, I would think, since the dimming has probably reduced the screen's dynamic range lower than SDR--thus HDR would be of no benefit?

I'm new to this stuff and am going purely on what I'm reading in this thread so who knows. I can only report what I find:

There is an HDR test that you can run here:

Create and edit true HDR (High Dynamic Range) images - Greg Benz Photography

B&H is currently offering an outstanding deal: $500 off the ASUS PA32UCXR 32" 4K HDR monitor, which is a stunning 1600 nits HDR monitor with 2304 local dimming zones (4x the Pro Display XDR), automated calibration, and single cable charging/pass-through. See my full reviews and other HDR monitor...

gregbenzphotography.com

 

[DavidMillier]

>>I went into display settings and turned on the HDR option.<<

It's not entirely clear to me that your monitor is a "true" HDR monitor--there are a variety of standards, soem of them not what we are talking about. Just having a screen go brighter is not what we are talking about. Is it an OLED or mini-LED? If not, it's probably a "fake" HDR mode--the HDR screens I have don't have HDR modes or buttons, they are HDR all of the time--just not fully utilized without an HDR signal.

In any event, if you like to view your monitor at very low dimming levels then HDR won't do you much good, I would think, since the dimming has probably reduced the screen's dynamic range lower than SDR--thus HDR would be of no benefit?

I'm new to this stuff and am going purely on what I'm reading in this thread so who knows. I can only report what I find:

There is an HDR test that you can run here:

https://gregbenzphotography.com/hdr/

I'm about to go away for a few days. I'll try this on my windows machine when I return. I'm on the ubuntu8 machine at the moment and the site says HDR not supported.

The blurb on that page is very annoying. To start with it claims modern raw files have 15 stops of dynamic range which is only true if you are happy with 99% noise levels. Real world dynamic range is more like 11 stops. Secondly, it strongly implies that it is impossible to display 11 stops of DR on a SDR device. This completely ignores the fact that you can map the full raw range to a restricted output range. I don't know how good conventional monitors are at this, but it's not a problem for a print. You just keep roughly linear separation in the midtones, then heavily non-linearly compress the toe and shoulder regions.

Do it right and it looks totally convincing.

 

[SrMi]

>>I went into display settings and turned on the HDR option.<<

It's not entirely clear to me that your monitor is a "true" HDR monitor--there are a variety of standards, soem of them not what we are talking about. Just having a screen go brighter is not what we are talking about. Is it an OLED or mini-LED? If not, it's probably a "fake" HDR mode--the HDR screens I have don't have HDR modes or buttons, they are HDR all of the time--just not fully utilized without an HDR signal.

In any event, if you like to view your monitor at very low dimming levels then HDR won't do you much good, I would think, since the dimming has probably reduced the screen's dynamic range lower than SDR--thus HDR would be of no benefit?

I'm new to this stuff and am going purely on what I'm reading in this thread so who knows. I can only report what I find:

There is an HDR test that you can run here:

https://gregbenzphotography.com/hdr/

I'm about to go away for a few days. I'll try this on my windows machine when I return. I'm on the ubuntu8 machine at the moment and the site says HDR not supported.

The blurb on that page is very annoying. To start with it claims modern raw files have 15 stops of dynamic range which is only true if you are happy with 99% noise levels. Real world dynamic range is more like 11 stops. Secondly, it strongly implies that it is impossible to display 11 stops of DR on a SDR device. This completely ignores the fact that you can map the full raw range to a restricted output range. I don't know how good conventional monitors are at this, but it's not a problem for a print. You just keep roughly linear separation in the midtones, then heavily non-linearly compress the toe and shoulder regions.

Do it right and it looks totally convincing.

I think you'll need the latest Windows to see HDR output correctly. Also, your monitor seems to have 400+ nits, preventing you from adequately seeing HDR images.

I can never create highlights of the same quality as with HDR mode, and god knows I tried hard. And by quality, I do not mean brightness alone.

 

[SrMi]

The HDR photos are not much brighter, and the difference is sometimes quite subtle. If you see a huge difference in brightness, then the problem is on your side.

Edit: Could you please share what kind of display you use to view HDR images?

m3 macbook pro.

i cant tell much difference except the hdr ones are a bit brighter. the most pronounced difference is in the cloth.

The details are in the details . In the garden villa image, check out the umbrella detail and the sky's detail and color. By the way, the differences are larger when viewing the images in LrC than when viewed on the web. I am still learning about HDR output mode.

Edit: I edit and view images on an M3 Max Macbook Pro, using the latest Chrome browser,

 

[JimKasson]

BenQ 4k 32".

Do you know how many nits are supported? Are you using Windows or Mac? Linux does not seem to support HDR output mode yet.

Don't know what a 'nit' is and I'm on Ubuntu although I also have windows and mac machines I rarely use.

A nit is a candela per square meter.

 

[darinb]

Greg,

This is your time. You are the DPreview Medium Format Board's prophet and evangelist of viewing images (especially medium format images) on beautiful screens.

HDR is what you have been waiting for.

Come back from Mexico, you are needed. Come back to your 32-inch screen. Hit the HDR button. We need you.

--Darin

 

[Interceptor121]

I have had HDR screen since the very beginning

There is an overwhelming emphasis on brigthness however what matters is contrast

I much prefer my LG OLED tv with true black to the bright image of my macbook pro or my iphones or even worse some desktop monitors that are just basic LED

Ultimately 10 stops of dynamic range are plenty and many images do not even reach them

Sunset sunrise and backlit shots are examples where HDR can help but your examples do not particularly benefit from it

Instagram started to support HDR because phones create HDR images

Phones will drive the adoption, we have had Tv and monitors for years and nothing has happened to date

HDR is interesting because it can avoid editing which many times is done to rebalance dynamic range in a gamma you can display or print, this is the same principles of HLG broadcasting

 

[SrMi]

I have had HDR screen since the very beginning

That does not mean that you can view HDR mode images properly.

There is an overwhelming emphasis on brigthness however what matters is contrast

What matters also is detail and color which you lose in SDR mode (highlights).

I much prefer my LG OLED tv with true black to the bright image of my macbook pro or my iphones or even worse some desktop monitors that are just basic LED

Ultimately 10 stops of dynamic range are plenty and many images do not even reach them

I have very rarely seen an image that has not improved by switching to HDR mode.

Sunset sunrise and backlit shots are examples where HDR can help but your examples do not particularly benefit from it

Instagram started to support HDR because phones create HDR images

Phones will drive the adoption, we have had Tv and monitors for years and nothing has happened to date

HDR is interesting because it can avoid editing which many times is done to rebalance dynamic range in a gamma you can display or print, this is the same principles of HLG broadcasting

If it were not for occasional too-bright spots, HDR mode requires less editing. Especially the problematic sky masks can often be avoided.

My advice to everyone is, before making an opinion on HDR mode, to try it out first. The follow up discussions will be more productive after the experimentation.

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[Interceptor121]

I have had HDR screen since the very beginning

That does not mean that you can view HDR mode images properly.

There is an overwhelming emphasis on brigthness however what matters is contrast

What matters also is detail and color which you lose in SDR mode (highlights).

I much prefer my LG OLED tv with true black to the bright image of my macbook pro or my iphones or even worse some desktop monitors that are just basic LED

Ultimately 10 stops of dynamic range are plenty and many images do not even reach them

I have very rarely seen an image that has not improved by switching to HDR mode.

Sunset sunrise and backlit shots are examples where HDR can help but your examples do not particularly benefit from it

Instagram started to support HDR because phones create HDR images

Phones will drive the adoption, we have had Tv and monitors for years and nothing has happened to date

HDR is interesting because it can avoid editing which many times is done to rebalance dynamic range in a gamma you can display or print, this is the same principles of HLG broadcasting

If it were not for occasional too-bright spots, HDR mode requires less editing. Especially the problematic sky masks can often be avoided.

My advice to everyone is, before making an opinion on HDR mode, to try it out first. The follow up discussions will be more productive after the experimentation.

 

[SrMi]

I have had HDR screen since the very beginning

That does not mean that you can view HDR mode images properly.

There is an overwhelming emphasis on brigthness however what matters is contrast

What matters also is detail and color which you lose in SDR mode (highlights).

I much prefer my LG OLED tv with true black to the bright image of my macbook pro or my iphones or even worse some desktop monitors that are just basic LED

Ultimately 10 stops of dynamic range are plenty and many images do not even reach them

I have very rarely seen an image that has not improved by switching to HDR mode.

Sunset sunrise and backlit shots are examples where HDR can help but your examples do not particularly benefit from it

Instagram started to support HDR because phones create HDR images

Phones will drive the adoption, we have had Tv and monitors for years and nothing has happened to date

HDR is interesting because it can avoid editing which many times is done to rebalance dynamic range in a gamma you can display or print, this is the same principles of HLG broadcasting

If it were not for occasional too-bright spots, HDR mode requires less editing. Especially the problematic sky masks can often be avoided.

My advice to everyone is, before making an opinion on HDR mode, to try it out first. The follow up discussions will be more productive after the experimentation.

I have sone hdr video since 6 years and photos since 2

You have much more experience with HDR output than me. Would you mind sharing what tools you used for two years to create HDR photos, what output format you used, and how you shared/viewed HDR photos?

your example images are not ideal to showcase the benefits

I am still struggling with HDR. What I see in Develop mode differs from what I see in the exported AVIF files. Do you have an example that is a better showcase? I consider images with overly bright highlights to be the negative aspect of HDR, the same as the garish look of early HDR merges.

with regards to colors in the highlights well there are not that many the highlights in hdr are super whites

In SDR, the highlights in the overcast sky are muted grey, while in HDR, the original blue comes through. That is visible in my posted images. I consider as highlights any brightness that falls in the HDR part of the tone curve.

dont confuse potential benefits of 10 bit color depth images with hdr dynamic range benefits

I am looking at the practical results. The problem is that the highlights seem to lose information in SDR (colors and details), which are apparent in HDR.

You can have an sdr 10 bits image that shows more colors than 8 bit jpeg

 

[DavidMillier]

If you are correct about the loss of highlight colour in SDR, what is the cause? Is it really a lack of dynamic range or some other monitor flaw?

For example, if you display an image that is, say, two stops underexposed and has no true highlight on an SDR monitor does it still lose colour in the brighter parts?