Opening JPEG/HEIC files with HDR directly does not preserve HDR information

Verified on Photoshop beta 26.11.0 (& release 26.9.0) on macOS Sequoia 15.5

When opening 8-bit JPEG or HEIC files with HDR directly in Photoshop, the HDR information (i.e. the PQ gain map) is silently lost. This can be worked-around somewhat by forcing Photoshop to open JPEG/HEIC images by way of Camera Raw, which preserves HDR info then sends it to Photoshop as a 32-bit file, but this immediately creates its own set of problems, such as files which are larger and visibly different from the originals as rendered in Preview.

Given that embedding HDR as JPEG/HEIC files has become the default output of phone cameras and so ubiquitous, we need a way to work directly & easily with these types of files — without introducing Camera Raw or other conversion steps — to open/edit/save them while preserving their original appearance, HDR gain-mapping, and 8-bit file formats

Example file attached: to reproduce...

Open file in Photoshop directly (without Camera Raw), then Save As... a copy

-> compare this to the original side-by-side in Preview on a system capable of displaying HDR content (e.g. all current model MacbookPro): the Photoshop-saved file is visibly changed, and does not contain the bright highlights shown in the orignal

Open file in Photoshop after setting Camera Raw to handle all JPEG/HEIC files, select HDR mode, then Save As...

-> the file is shown as a 32-bit file while editing

-> the original 8-bit JPEG (or HEIC) file format is not available for saving

-> here the user must do a manual conversion/export step back to 8-bit 

-> the output file (both when preserving 32-bit as JXL or converting back to 8-bit) compared side-by-side with the original (as above) is visibly different