What is the use of HDR?

[dv9973]

I'm starting to use my iPhone 15 Plus with Lightrooms' camera and HDR. HDR looks great on the phone and in a laptop (MBP M1) but the web versions are very disappointing. All of which makes me wonder what the point of using HDR is. Unless a viewer has HDR compatible hardware, you are left with gorgeous pictures for yourself but not for others. Is photography really meant to be a narcissistic activity? : )

The idea of an ecosystem is a good one. It's just hard to know how to break out of that walled structure when you want to.

Curious about others' opinions.

What do you mean by WEB version? Is there some WEB standard that prevents displaying HDR?

I think the OP is talking about the file format HDR, not what we generally mean when we talk about HDR images, a composite image to get details in both highlights and shadows.

https://docs.fileformat.com/image/hdr

I could, of course, be wrong...

No, you're not wrong.
Most people call the tone mapping as HDR, the goal of which is to reduce HDR.

 

[Dem Bell]

I'm starting to use my iPhone 15 Plus with Lightrooms' camera and HDR. HDR looks great on the phone and in a laptop (MBP M1) but the web versions are very disappointing. All of which makes me wonder what the point of using HDR is. Unless a viewer has HDR compatible hardware, you are left with gorgeous pictures for yourself but not for others. Is photography really meant to be a narcissistic activity? : )

The idea of an ecosystem is a good one. It's just hard to know how to break out of that walled structure when you want to.

Curious about others' opinions.

What do you mean by WEB version? Is there some WEB standard that prevents displaying HDR?

I think the OP is talking about the file format HDR, not what we generally mean when we talk about HDR images, a composite image to get details in both highlights and shadows.

https://docs.fileformat.com/image/hdr

I could, of course, be wrong...

No, you're not wrong.
Most people call the tone mapping as HDR, the goal of which is to reduce HDR.

For a good reason. How else will you print anything?

 

[Dick Dastardly]

Without HDR, phone images would look exactly like they did a decade ago. HDR is the universal trick used by every smartphone manufactured today.

 

[Craig Gillette]

I could "process" to take advantage of my OLED tv display. I haven't really. I've tried a couple of "slideshows" to run in background at some family things but attentions was usually directed elsewhere. I might give it a shot using my laptop for direct hook-up. HDR broadcasts or blurays are pretty well handled.

From a "sharing" standpoint, I share a a 16:9 image at 3840x2160, (via social media) with a potential that any recipient might have a 4k monitor or tv. That said, I've no expectation that there is any sort of consistency or calibration or quality in my family and/or friends "displays" so don't put a lot of critical effort into it.

I think to some extent, aside from "TVs," it's like 8k and a chicken and egg situation. There's not a lot of consumer user capacity yet in 8ks in homes and without a lot of users/demand, not as much source material produced. I'd expect there's a bottleneck in distribution, too. At least for video.

 

[MarkInSF]

I could "process" to take advantage of my OLED tv display. I haven't really. I've tried a couple of "slideshows" to run in background at some family things but attentions was usually directed elsewhere. I might give it a shot using my laptop for direct hook-up. HDR broadcasts or blurays are pretty well handled.

From a "sharing" standpoint, I share a a 16:9 image at 3840x2160, (via social media) with a potential that any recipient might have a 4k monitor or tv. That said, I've no expectation that there is any sort of consistency or calibration or quality in my family and/or friends "displays" so don't put a lot of critical effort into it.

I think to some extent, aside from "TVs," it's like 8k and a chicken and egg situation. There's not a lot of consumer user capacity yet in 8ks in homes and without a lot of users/demand, not as much source material produced. I'd expect there's a bottleneck in distribution, too. At least for video.

8k is basically a gimmick, as human eyes can't resolve all that detail. 4k is plenty, and then some. Most streaming services' HD is heavily compressed, so not all that spectacular or high-res, and that's where most content is received from.

 

[Linahira]

HDR looks amazing on supported screens, but you’re right most web platforms and displays still default to SDR, so the impact gets lost. For now, HDR is best if your audience also has compatible hardware, otherwise exporting an SDR version ensures consistency. It’s less about narcissism and more about choosing the right format for where your photos will be viewed.

 

[mreynolds767]

I find it interesting that no one else but me has mentioned the major issue with the HDR file type and printing.

A file prepared for an HDR screen will be completely unusable for any form of printing at all - photo prints, post cards, magazines, newspapers you name it. It will have blown out highlights and clipped shadows. HDR extends the histogram into unprintable areas on both ends.

If you edited from an HDR starting point to dumb it down you probably would lose a ton of detail so not a good solution.

My conclusion if you do edit your files for HDR display purposes you will either need to never care if your file can be printed or make 2 edits for every image.

This to me is a major drawback and will never be resolved.

--
Online Gallery here
https://www.mattreynoldsphotography.com/

 

[jipnet]

Gorgeous photos. They look processed. what is your workflow?

 

[jipnet]

Gorgeous photos. They look processed. what is your workflow?

 

[jipnet]

HDR looks amazing on supported screens, but you’re right most web platforms and displays still default to SDR, so the impact gets lost. For now, HDR is best if your audience also has compatible hardware, otherwise exporting an SDR version ensures consistency. It’s less about narcissism and more about choosing the right format for where your photos will be viewed.

I found that jxl exported images are pretty close to hdr on my screen. But I don’t know that sharing sites can display that format.

 

[dv9973]

I find it interesting that no one else but me has mentioned the major issue with the HDR file type and printing.

A file prepared for an HDR screen will be completely unusable for any form of printing at all - photo prints, post cards, magazines, newspapers you name it. It will have blown out highlights and clipped shadows. HDR extends the histogram into unprintable areas on both ends.

If you edited from an HDR starting point to dumb it down you probably would lose a ton of detail so not a good solution.

My conclusion if you do edit your files for HDR display purposes you will either need to never care if your file can be printed or make 2 edits for every image.

This to me is a major drawback and will never be resolved.

RAW is also not suitable for printing, but there are smart people who manage to print. :-D

 

[mreynolds767]

RAW is also not suitable for printing, but there are smart people who manage to print. :-D

Completely different. A RAW is meant to be edited not shared. You edit it and then as long as you don't edit for an HDR design can share your file for any media - print, online or otherwise. It is one edit for universal use how it always has been.

Editing your files to take advantage of HDR displays makes them poor for viewing on non-HDR displays, sites that cannot display HDR formats and for printing.

 

[mreynolds767]

Gorgeous photos. They look processed. what is your workflow?

Thanks!

Yes all my photos are processed a good amount from the original RAW captures. No specific workflow. I use both Lightroom and Photoshop to make edits. I rarely apply the same edits on each image - so not a fan of presets and things like that.

I consider each image unique and usually find I can get the most out of an image when I know what direction I want to take the image before I even start moving any sliders. it takes some time to be able to visualize that but comes overtime.

Often I exposure stack and blend them if the dynamic range of the scene needs it and similar techniques to ideally have as much RAW data as possible to work from as my base.

Have not bothered with edits for HDR displays for the reasons I mentioned. Not interested in making dual files / edits every time.

 

[dv9973]

I find it interesting that no one else but me has mentioned the major issue with the HDR file type and printing.

A file prepared for an HDR screen will be completely unusable for any form of printing at all - photo prints, post cards, magazines, newspapers you name it. It will have blown out highlights and clipped shadows. HDR extends the histogram into unprintable areas on both ends.

If you edited from an HDR starting point to dumb it down you probably would lose a ton of detail so not a good solution.

My conclusion if you do edit your files for HDR display purposes you will either need to never care if your file can be printed or make 2 edits for every image.

This to me is a major drawback and will never be resolved.

Interestingly, a week after an argument about the impossibility of printing HDR, I saw a print of 2 beautiful HDR photos at a restaurant yesterday. Obviously, the waiters didn't know anything about it, so I googled it.

https://yuedong.shading.me/project/hdrprint/hdrprint.pdf

 

[4tune]

I find it interesting that no one else but me has mentioned the major issue with the HDR file type and printing.

A file prepared for an HDR screen will be completely unusable for any form of printing at all - photo prints, post cards, magazines, newspapers you name it. It will have blown out highlights and clipped shadows. HDR extends the histogram into unprintable areas on both ends.

If you edited from an HDR starting point to dumb it down you probably would lose a ton of detail so not a good solution.

My conclusion if you do edit your files for HDR display purposes you will either need to never care if your file can be printed or make 2 edits for every image.

This to me is a major drawback and will never be resolved.

Interestingly, a week after an argument about the impossibility of printing HDR, I saw a print of 2 beautiful HDR photos at a restaurant yesterday. Obviously, the waiters didn't know anything about it, so I googled it.

https://yuedong.shading.me/project/hdrprint/hdrprint.pdf

Is this ever really done? How do you know the 2 beautiful photos were HDR?

 

[mreynolds767]

I find it interesting that no one else but me has mentioned the major issue with the HDR file type and printing.

A file prepared for an HDR screen will be completely unusable for any form of printing at all - photo prints, post cards, magazines, newspapers you name it. It will have blown out highlights and clipped shadows. HDR extends the histogram into unprintable areas on both ends.

If you edited from an HDR starting point to dumb it down you probably would lose a ton of detail so not a good solution.

My conclusion if you do edit your files for HDR display purposes you will either need to never care if your file can be printed or make 2 edits for every image.

This to me is a major drawback and will never be resolved.

Interestingly, a week after an argument about the impossibility of printing HDR, I saw a print of 2 beautiful HDR photos at a restaurant yesterday. Obviously, the waiters didn't know anything about it, so I googled it.

https://yuedong.shading.me/project/hdrprint/hdrprint.pdf

I skimmed over the article on the link above but I see nothing here that disproves what I wrote and don't understand how you the photos you saw at a restaurant were prints of HDR images???

The article seems to be talking about printing a specific way that sounds like it would filled with trial and error per image to achieve different reflections from light sources at different angles.

There is well known print vendor named White Wall (Europe based but ships worldwide) that has a product called HD - Bay Photo out of CA - also calls some of their prints HD but in both cases they are not printing HDR images (able to print in areas a regular histogram would say are out of range). Is purely a marketing term in this case. There is even a printer named HDR prints but they have no special machines to print HDR prepared file types. https://hdrprint.com/

If you look at the histogram in Lightroom or Photoshop when you edit for HDR it extends the histogram on both ends and allows you much more editing headroom as a result BUT those are unprintable areas - as it is using an extended histogram these screens can handle but a printer cannot.

The article linked it seems they did constant adjustments to there file to achieve a result with the printer they are saying looks like HDR but they did not just print an HDR file.

My prints in person have much more dynamic range than a single image out of my camera can achieve ; does that mean I printed a specific extended histogram HDR file to achieve that - no ; those are 2 separate things.

This entire thread and the topic in general is a mess and confusing ; because HDR is used for multiple meanings/ purposes as well as constantly used in marketing. I wish they would have named the new editing option and file type something completely different. I believe the OP as originally asking specifically about why to edit using this fairly new to Adobe HDR options - and my point about the reason I never have and don't intend to is it creates files that cannot be used for printing.

HDR for the purpose of this thread should be limited to "Extended Histogram Images" (in my opinion).

--
Online Gallery here
https://www.mattreynoldsphotography.com/