HDR Export Color Drift

[Seawabear]

Setup

• Lr Classic 13.0.1 for macOS, Mac Studio; Lr for iPad 9.0.0 8AFC9B/112, iPad Pro 12.9 with XDR display
• Original files on mac, used collection sync to edit on iPad Pro

Expectation

• Exported AVIF (or any HDR-ready format supported by Lr) should look identical to the edits previewed on Lr on iPad Pro.

Actual Results

• Exposure not consistent with the Lr edit preview on iPad Pro
• Color drift—you can see the sky in Lr was correct in blue, the exported AVIF viewed on the same iPad Pro showed a lot of cyan

Attached file is the photo I took of my iPad Pro, on the left is the AVIF exported from Lr, viewed using the Photos app; on the right is the edit preview in Lr. They were displayed on the iPad simultaneously using iPad's Stage Manager multiple task feature.

Please advise how to make the export true to the edit, or if Photos app is not ready for AVIF, please recommend me proper app to view HDR AVIF.

Thanks.

[Seawabear]

Update: I tried viewing the same exported photo using Lr for iPad, and everything works perfectly. So it's actually Apple's fault?

[Jao vdL]

No app on Apple's ecosystem supports HDR avif files. Not photos on the iPad and not preview on the desktop. Apple has just not implemented this. Note that there is no way to get HDR images to show correctly on the iPad except for images in Lightroom.app. Safari won't work, Photos won't work, etc.

[Jao vdL]

P.S. Apple supports one format that can display HDR images in Photos on the iPad and it is HEIC. Unfortunately Lightroom cannot export to HEIC so we are stuck.

[Seawabear]

Thanks for the reply. That's so unfortunate, the largest photo editor and largest photo consumption device misaligned.

I've posted on Apple Community about this issues. Hope it will nudge Apple to do something. - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255270675