HDR AVIF saved from ACR looks not quite as HDR in Chrome

[bgreenstone]

I've been playing around with the HDR feature in ACR and the biggest problem I'm having is figuring out how to actually view the HDR images after I save them as AVIF files.  Loading them into Preview on the Mac just shows a flat SDR image, and loading them into Google Chrome does show an HDR image, but it's nowhere near as "HDR" as it appeared in Photoshop or ACR.  The highlights are much dimmer and areas that I allowed to get blown out suddely appear correct.  It is as though Chrome is knocking the exposure or at least highlites of the image down to reduce the brightness.  Like I said, however, it's still in HDR - way better than the obvious SDR version, but it doesn't look anything like what I see in Photoshop.

I'm doing this all on my MacBook Pro with 1600nits peak brightness.  Any idea what may be happening?  Are there other apps for the Mac that support HDR AVIF files?  I wonder if they'll look the same.  I don't know if the issue is with the AVIF file itself or with the way Chrome handles it.

Here is the DNG file which appears correct in ACR and the output AVIF file which looks different at least in Chrome:  https://www.dropbox.com/sh/keln53jaoqnovux/AABTB5M3mwZuzR_3N-1SRSHAa?dl=0

[TheDigitalDog]

If I load both into Adobe Camera Raw, and enable or disable HDR, they don't match there with either mode, which seems odd. So yeah, I see that. Why I don't know. This might be something an engineer in the Adobe Camera Raw team needs to answer. I'll ping one. 

[bgreenstone]

Thanks.  I wonder what would happen on a display with lower peak nits brightness.  I'm at 1600 on my MacBook Pro which is fairly high, but if I connected a different HDR monitor that had a peak of say 1000 nits I wonder if it would just look all blown out (because I edited the photo for 1600 nits peak), or if some tone mapping or scaling would occur to knock it down and make it look more like what I was seeing in Chrome.

[TheDigitalDog]

There's a visual mismatch so that's my first concern. The cd/m2 isn't going to change that. Yes, the sky shows the biggest difference but I see it elsewhere too. 

[bgreenstone]

Yes, the entire image is different in Chrome vs. looking at it in ACR.  By the way I tried loading the AVIF file into Photos on the Mac, and there it does something odd.  Whenever I select that file it displays it in HDR for about 1/2 second and then reverts to an SDR version.  During that 1/2 second, however, it kinda looks like what I was seeing in Photoshop, but I'm not 100% certain because it's so brief.  If it is, however, then maybe the issue is just with how Chrome is handling the AVIF HDR file?  I have no idea why Photos won't show the file in HDR permanently - seems like a bug that's causing it to "flash" like that.

[Aaron28432689l2jh]

I am experiencing the same exact issue. I edit in ACR with HDR on and export as AVIF with "Enable HDR Display" and the space set to "HDR P3". When I import into Photos.app the photo shows up as an HDR photo for a brief moment and then reverts back to an SDR version. It seems that macOS/Photos supports HDR AVIF files but is reverting to an SDR preview. Maybe some additional container information has to be set to "force" HDR previews?

Interestingly, opening the same file in Google Chrome shows the HDR version correctly. I am beginning to suspect this is a bug with Photos.app rather than ACR.

Adobe Photoshop 24.1.1 

MacBook Pro 16-inch, 2021

macOS Ventura 13.2.1

Google Chrome 109.0.5414.87