P: Auto Button in SDR Rendition Settings

[bst7]

I am newly exploring the HDR (and jxl) formats and it is wonderful to see highlights from my camera's DNG files finally being seen (on a 10bit display), and on iPhones too for that matter.

However, there is little general support for HDR output and the default rendering of an HDR file to SDR is terrible. I've developed a work flow that is ok, but would like to suggest an improvement.

(1) HDR Edit is my master edits and I'm doing everything there.

(2) Create a Virtual Copy of this, turn OFF HDR, and do "Auto" for the basic slider settings.

With a few minor tweaks, this is good enough actually, at least for a vast majority of the use cases I have in mind.

So, my request:

In the HDR Settings, there is an "SDR Rendition Settings". I know these sliders are a little different, but I wonder if we could have an "Auto" button that would do much the same as what I'm doing manually above?

The default rendering of these settings is terrible - the standard what an HDR file looks like when rendered on an SD display. The "Auto" button could be turned on and off, the existing sliders can be there, but at least you would have a better starting point than what you have now - it is quite a lot of work to tweak these sliders to get something that is close to what a normal "SDR" editing mode would give you.

Thanks!

William 

[umlautnord]

Would love this. Quick tips picked up from one or two others to speed up the process a bit: I always start the SDR rendition by setting clarity -100 (and always leave it there) and shadows -50 (and would only adjust a bit). Then, whites/brightness/highlights, then contrast/highlight saturation, and then just... lots of tweaks!

[bst7]

Ok - so the Adaptive Profiles look really interesting, but I was surprised to read this:

"Using the Adobe Adaptive profile is straightforward.... For a regular SDR image make sure that HDR Output is not checked. If you forget to do this, the resulting HDR JPEG file can still be displayed on an SDR screen, but what you see is not the Adobe Adaptive SDR look but the HDR look compressed into SDR."

Why would you default to that? The "HDR->SDR" looks terrible, why (if I forget to not check "HDR") wouldn't you automatically chose the SDR rendering for me. 

This is such a mess, If I do do an "HDR" JPEG and the rendering system does not support HDR JPEGs they look terrible, so to my mind, it is useless to distribute any kind of HDR content in a JPEG (and just use the new file formats for that).

This is just making a bad situation "not better" if not "worse"

[umlautnord]

@bst7 I believe that the way the current "SDR rendering" (i.e., base image without a gain map) of an HDR image is created is entirely different from what the Adaptive profile is doing. So yes, it still looks terrible by default. The desire for an automatic creation of a good SDR render of an HDR image remains. The Adaptive profile, in its current form, doesn't fix that and isn't meant to.

The idea of the Adaptive profile being okay in both HDR and SDR is that you can flip back and forth between one or the other without having to make massive changes to other adjustments. This is helpful if you do want to output both an SDR image and an HDR image separately. Or, decide whether it's worth trying to work in HDR or not. Right now, if you use, say, Adobe Color and make adjustments for an ideal SDR image, flipping it to HDR will require an entire re-edit.

Yes, again, outputting the HDR image still requires separate adjustment of the "SDR rendition," which is a pain. I very much hope that the technology behind this easy flip back-and-forth can be pushed forwards into an easy, good automatic SDR rendition when using a gain map! But again, that's not what this is meant to do right now.

[bst7]

One of my concerns (which I don't think you highlighted) is the continued "default" of HDR content in JPEG files is making matters worse, not better, and I hope Adobe will alter this default to ensure that HDR gets into a JPEG file ONLY if explicitly checked by the user in export. It is such a mess when you actually can NOT provide a good "backwards compatible" render.

[umlautnord]

Hm - I'm not sure what you mean by the default piece of "HDR content getting in a JPEG file." Apologies for not understanding! Are you editing in HDR and then exporting a non-HDR JPEG (ie, export with "HDR" unchecked)?

[bst7]

It is in my post above - from Adobe: "Using the Adobe Adaptive profile is straightforward.... For a regular SDR image make sure that HDR Output is not checked. If you forget to do this, the resulting HDR JPEG file can still be displayed on an SDR screen, but what you see is not the Adobe Adaptive SDR look but the HDR look compressed into SDR."

I think that if you "forget" then the default should not be HDR (or an error).

[umlautnord]

Ah. Gotcha. Yeah, right now you just have to be really conscious of whether you're going down an HDR or SDR workflow with an image and export accordingly.

Personally, I generally just decide whether HDR is "worth it" on an image. I choose based on whether the extra-bright highlights will actually add that much to the image or not, etc. And, I choose knowing that it'll be harder to share at the moment and that Lightroom makes it tough to get an SDR rendition that looks as good as I want. Like you, I also sometimes create a separate SDR-only virtual copy. I sometimes start from scratch for the SDR edit, honestly—depending on the image, the curves just need to be handled very differently.

I think the Adaptive profile really is more of a "looks good as a starting point in HDR or SDR, and can flip back and forth more easily in the process without it looking wildly different," not necessarily as helpful as an export tool. As I said, hopefully it's a step in that direction. Others may figure out a good workflow to use it for HDR and an easy switch to SDR, but really, the goal should be just exporting the one JPEG that looks good whether or not a gain map is being read!

There, we do just need better (and hopefully more automatic) ways of setting the base SDR rendition within Lightroom—exactly your feature request. There's a similar request from Greg Benz (and 100% check out his site and ebook if you haven't). His request is older, but has more detailed stuff about gain maps and process: https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-ideas/allow-full-user-control-of-the-sdr-renditio...

I agree it's really frustrating sometimes. We'll get there!

[bst7]

Thanks - I like the experimental "Embed HDR Gain Map." option in ACR from the post your mention. Would love this in LR to experiment with.