P: Beta Feature HDR Output Feedback Thread (Released)

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

With the October 10, 2023, release of Adobe’s Photography products, HDR Editing and Output is out of beta and now available as a feature across the Lightroom and Camera Raw products.

There is a great article about HDR from Eric Chan at the Adobe Blog here: https://www.adobe.com/go/hdr_explained 

This thread will be locked now but left in place for future reference. Thank you to all who participated in the testing and evolution of this feature during its beta.

Update (12.13.2022) the Beta feature (formerly Mac-only) is now available in Mac and Windows.

Camera Raw 15 15.1 introduces High Dynamic Range Output:

• the ability to view and edit HDR photos on compatible HDR displays
• the ability to save HDR photos to disk and open them in Photoshop
• the addition of (read) AVIF/JXL format files

Photos optimized for HDR displays have brighter highlights and more detailed shadows, resulting in an increased sense of realism and greater impact.

You can enable the HDR Display feature in the Technology Previews of the Camera Raw Preferences.

High Dynamic Range Output is currently a Technology Preview feature on macOS. Please provide feedback on this feature in this forum thread.

Please see: https://helpx.adobe.com/camera-raw/using/hdr-output.html for more information.

[Rick.Williams]

Exciting. Will try it out later today!

[TheDigitalDog]

When my new 16" MBP arrives next week, I'll certainly give this a try. 

[PECourtejoie]

I'd gladly receive one as well to test it 😄

[TheDigitalDog]

In anticipation of newer models, the current line is heavily discounted and with a four-year-old MBP, I couldn't turn down the deal. 

[ZBalling]

Works on windows 11 now too. HDR display recommended, but works for >100 nits displays too.

[Rick.Williams]

I played with it a bit. Very cool, and seems to work well. I cranked the exposure and highlights on a white boat I had a photo of. It was blindly bright, I'd hate to open that image in the dark, 🤣 Gonna be fun to play with. 
Cant wait until Lightroom gets it. 

[michael50B8]

So tired of the horrible handling of highlights in Lightroom and the huge difference between ACR and Lightroom for masking,  among so many other things.  We pay a subscription price, we deserve better, I kinda get the feeling adobe people [abuse removed] know just how big of a pain it is for us to leave.  Luminar, Topaz, Capture One, DxO.., are all making great strides and very shortly it will be worth my time to seriously consider leaving adobe completely.  If they EVER figure out it is in their best interest to work together seemlessly, Adobe will be in serious trouble.  The only real advantage is the Lightroom catalog, everything else is just a matter of process, which they seem to be 98% equal to for the overwhelming vast majority of functions and seriously better in many cases.  Denoise, HDR, Panorama, Highlights, AI, Stock Sky replacement options, camera/lens specific profiles that make a very noticable difference..,  My subscription seems to be worth less all the time.

[Trevor.Dennis]

I came across that information from watching this video a couple of days ago, but I don't know why it is a Mac only feature and when that might change.   @Pete.Green  Do you have any information on this?

[davescm]

Hi , I've moved your post from the Photoshop forum to the Camera Raw forum where you are more likely to get input relevant to your discussion.

Dave

[Steve Oswald]

Does anyone know when the HDRO button will be added for Windows 10 operating system.

[JtheNinja]

They have not announced anything beyond saying in the docs that they're working on it:

"We are actively working on several areas, including support for Windows, and Lightroom, user interface improvements"

[Marwood_Abroad]

Putting the 'Visualise HDR' option in the 'Basic' tab means it's difficult to access while you're using the curves tab (which is arguably the most valuable tool to start your HDR edit, given you only really have Whites and Highlights for controlling the entire >SDR tonal range.

Also, you probably need to re-calibrate what's considered Highlights, Midtones and Darks in the Color Grading tab, when in HDR mode: they are pinned to the SDR values, so don't appear to work on anything brighter.

[Marwood_Abroad]

Are you considering any other output options, given Google has announced it's dropping JPEG XL support from Chrome?

[JtheNinja]

Great to see Windows (and AVIF) support in 15.1! However, testing it out today, I'm not sure ACR (at least on Windows) is saving the images properly? Both JXL and AVIF do not match the Camera Raw window when viewed in Chrome and are rather distorted. Also, saving SDR images seems to produce a clipped version of the HDR image, rather than what you see in the "SDR Preview" tool like I would expect

[TheDigitalDog]

Great to see Windows (and AVIF) support in 15.1! However, testing it out today, I'm not sure ACR (at least on Windows) is saving the images properly? Both JXL and AVIF do not match the Camera Raw window when viewed in Chrome and are rather distorted. Also, saving SDR images seems to produce a clipped version of the HDR image, rather than what you see in the "SDR Preview" tool like I would expect

By @JtheNinja

They don't match because they apparently do not support HDR previews. Which ACR now does. 

[JtheNinja]

The camera raw widget does support HDR previews. Photoshop itself does not for regular documents, but everything is correct in the camera raw view. What I'm seeing the camera raw widget is 100% correct, HDR has HDR overbrights, SDR preview has a correct fallback/trim pass. It's just that exporting does not produce AVIFs with these results. I think it might be related to what @Pawel Guraj said about GPU acceleration, when I get a chance I'll check to see if Windows has a similar issue and workaround.

[ZBalling]

>saving the images properly

Or opening them. See this tagged as PQ image. Chrome is brighter.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-ideas/please-add-hdr-display-support/idc-p/131439...

[Jao vdL]

Have been playing quite a bit with this and it is just absolutely fantastic if you are in camera Raw and in Photoshop and stay in tiff or psd but there clearly is something wrong with the jxl and avif export from camera raw. The exported images are completely blown out both in preview and in chrome - even if I reopen them in camera raw. You can see this in the screenshot below. The screenshots don't capture the HDR range so you have to trust me that there is amazing and gorgeous detail in the sunset clouds. In the AVIF however, viewed in either preview, Chrome or in ACR/Photoshop, it is a blown out mess. You can also see that the histogram is completely wrong. Clearly a bug in the creation of the avif and jxl (same result). My prefs for the technology previews in ACR and Photoshop are set correctly.

[Jao vdL]

Oh and camera raw 15.1.0.1329 and PS 24.1.0

[Antonello27527181pj8h]

COLORS MISMATCH (NOTHING CHANGE WITH CAMERA RAW HDR OUTPUT)

Hi, i have a mac book pro 14 (1600 nits)...i believed i would have finally seen the shots i took during these many years with my nikon D800 with much more realistic colors that the ones can give you an sdr image/display.  Unfortunately nothing changed....using the new function on Camera Raw (Output HDR) the raw photos appear in some cases even worse because essentiallly we have the same image with just more flaring fake colors. 

The colored highlights (for  example the ones on the shop signs) on a sdr display appear desatureted, so an intense red color can appear yellow/orange or a blue neon light even white.

I followed correctly all the instructions, i contacted the adobe help center, but once again nothing changed....display doesn't show me the true highlights colors even if the fall well within (seeing instogram) the capacity of my display.

I ask you now: is it a limit of rgb camera filters (that they are not capable to register the proper values when monochromatic lights become intense, even if far away less from the ones, for example, can have traffic lights) so that we all have raw photos that actually don't worth too much or is a problem of this new funcion on Camera Raw (output HDR) incapable 'till now to properly rendering the raw files?!

Thank you very very much and the best complimnets to who will reveal the solution 🙂

[JtheNinja]

The D800 should be capable of capturing enough data, at least if you set exposure correctly. Are you able to view videos in HDR on your MacBook, such as this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUCxQfpoYCw Try that first to make sure HDR display is working at all on your device.

Next, make sure your source file is indeed raw, and that it is NOT CLIPPED. As someone who's been messing with HDR output in various tools for a few years now, I cannot stress enough how important it is to protect your highlights when shooting for HDR. To check your file, just drag the exposure slider way to the left. With the exposure lowered, your highlights should still look white-ish and have visible detail. If they're solid gray and darken evenly with the midtones, you clipped them and that raw file has limited ability to make a good HDR image. If you can post a sample of a raw file here that you're having trouble with, we can check if it was shot with enough detail.

[Antonello27527181pj8h]

Hi, many lights in the footage you linked present the same problem of false representation of colors...consider the red of traffic lights, the red of the lights on the top of the buildings, in many occasions, the tail lights of cars, etc etc..... nevertheless your video has an high quality and it looks gourgeos. With photos through, we can analize in an easier way the problem of misreprresentation of colors.

You can downloand the test photos from this link: https://we.tl/t-m3DbCdu2BM

The 5627 was shot at 900 iso where Nikon D800 has a dynamic range around 11.5 EV

...7301 at 2800 iso, D800 has 10.5 EV

...6692 at 720 iso, D800 has 12.2 EV

In the 6692 the neon lights signs where blue...in hdr will appear cyan as in sdr!

In the 5267 half a disaster.... the sign C&A should be blue and the ring around red ..ect ect

In the 7301 a disaster...the sign Samsung was blue, Burgerking red, ect ect.

......again, in HDR Output the white shine but the colored highlights or don't flare or if they do, do with mismatched colours

[MadManChan2000]

The colors in the areas you indicate (typically the neon lights) are problematic because they are clipped in the raw data.  For example, around the C&A sign, the letters C and A have both the green and blue channels clipped.  For The warm-colored ellipse around it, those lights in the red channel, or in some cases clipped in both the red and green.  Because of these partially-clipped colors, it is undefined/unknown what the "true" color is.

They will appear different in the SDR and HDR modes, because the SDR mode tries to push near-white colors towards the gray axis (neutral) to ensure a smooth transition towards white.  In HDR mode, we don't do this, because there is no predefined upper limit for white.  Thus, the HDR mode version is closer to what was actually recorded in the file.

[PECourtejoie]

Thank you for the... enlightening information !