HDR photos display properly in Lightroom on Mac but appear too dim once exported

[adaml60096233]

I'm editing on both an M1 MacBook Air and an M1 iMac. Both display HDR properly in the Lightroom app, but once exported, the lighting is not as intense--highlights are dimmed.

I've tried exporting in AVIF and JPEG XL, with all available color spaces, with no result. I've tried viewing the images in Preview, Safari, Chrome, and Photos, but they all look identical, i.e. a little too dim.

HDR Output is selected while exporting. A notice displays while exporting that "HDR is not visible in this preview," and the preview looks VERY dim, even dimmer than the final exported photos.

I've attached a screenshot here. Obviously the colors don't look like they do in real view, but you can see there's a difference. Left is the Lightroom app, right is the exported photo. 

 

Everything I've read online leads me to believe that MacOS Sonoma should be able to display HDR properly. Does anyone know why they are not exporting properly?

[alizabeth_3361]

Amazing! That was so helpful. Now I have my beautiful HDR image open in photoshop and everything looks right. Now, is there a way to save this as a jpeg that will retain that quality from here without needing an HDR viewer? Or is this even an option? Trying to save these to be able to use in multiple applications- web use and potential printing in the future. Thank you again for your help!! Photoshop (and especilly Lightroom) changed so much in the past few years when I wasn't really using it that I almost feel like a beginner again these days. 

[alizabeth_3361]

Amazing! That was so helpful. Now I have my beautiful HDR image open in photoshop and everything looks right. Now, is there a way to save this as a jpeg that will retain that quality from here without needing an HDR viewer? Or is this even an option? I was able to save it as a Radience file, so it looks pretty decent just in preview on my computer, but I need a jpeg to be able to upload to web. Thank you again for your help!! Photoshop (and especilly Lightroom) changed so much in the past few years when I wasn't really using it that I almost feel like a beginner again these days. 

[Jao vdL]

It is possible to save a HDR capable jpeg from camera raw of Lightroom. Not from Photoshop itself as far as I know but I could be wrong. However those jpegs only work in Chrome and only if the webserver supports it correctly. Many websites will strip away the jpeg gain map that is used for the HDR info when making scaled copies of the jpeg for display and the jpeg will look terrible - worse than a standard SDR jpeg. Also, very few image viewers support these jpegs. You need to be very careful with HDR images for now whether they are AVIF or JPEG with gain map. There is very little that supports these fully. Only when you completely control the imaging chain from webserver to viewer can you be sure the viewer sees what you want. 

[Prescott38275726clv6]

I'm using Lightroom on a MacBook Pro M1 to edit raw photos from a Sony α6400 camera. I wanted to create HDR images that could go into a Photos album for viewing on the laptop or on an iPhone.

I found a solution which might also answer the original question.  This probably depends on recent updates to Lightroom, Photos (MacOS) and Photos (iOS).

After editing in Lightroom (HDR mode) I export photos as JPEG XL (.JXL) files using the P3 HDR color space. Next, I import the image files into Photos on the MacBook. (Other apps on the MacBook don't show the .JXL images properly, but Photos does.) I could add these files to a Photos album, but after synchronizing with the iPhone it turns out they are not viewable on the iPhone. However, I can export them from Photos as HEIC files, and then import the HEIC versions back to Photos on the MacBook. These images (having been converted to HEIC by Photos) can be added to an album and they do show up as HDR with nice highlights on the MacBook and iPhone.

[Jens3002127602px]

Thank you, that's what I was looking for to display photos from my other cameras in the apple photos albums in HDR. Although it's completly ridicioulous that we have to use such a workflow and it isn't working right out of the box. 

[Jens3002127602px]

Well, turned out I had some settings to choose to make it work... So if you want to import working HDR images to your iPhone from any camera, this might be the workflow to follow - for me, it didn't work with P3 and jxl. 

1. Develop your image as HDR image in Adobe Lightroom.
2. 
3. Export your image as AVIF in the colorspace HDR-Rec. 2020

• 

1. Import the image on your Mac into Apple Photos by drag&drop
2. The image will show up as HDR in Photos on your Mac - and sometimes even on your iPhone, but not always.
3. If it doesn’t show up as HDR on your iPhone, or if the HDR is lost when zooming into the picture (strange effect) you need a trick:
4. Export the image from Photos on your Mac:
5. 
6. Expand the export setting and choose HEIC, Colorprofile Original and Size Original size:

1. 
2. Import the new HEIC File on your Mac into Photos again
3. This new HEIC image will consistently be on the iPhone (as least for me) - iOS 17.5, macOS Sonoma 12.5.

All in all, this whole process seems really buggy to me. 

[Jao vdL]

That's really Apple's problem. They should get with the program and support AVIF and JXL everywhere. It's embarassing that only Photos supports it and not preview and not safari. For me AVIF imported into either Photos on the iPhone or into Photos on the Mac translates correctly to the Photos app on iOS every time, so I am surprised you need the HEIC step for that. I just export directly from the Lightroom app on my phone using a synced smart preview from Classic using avif in HDR on the phone Lightroom app exporting directly to the photo roll and it works just fine. If I do it on my Mac, it takes a while before the HDR shows up on the phone if I am not on my very fast home network so this might be a slow syncing effect where it first syncs a non-HDR preview to Apple's cloud servers before it syncs the actual HDR data.

[Caroline33223389gwyk]

THANK YOU for this! I was having similiar issues and basically just resorting to trying every combo of file type and colorspace. Hope Apple fixes this soon as it is super annoying to go through all these steps and export so differently for HDR than SDR.