iPhone 14 Pro lost HDR display capability in Lightroom for iOS

[gerdusv12344227]

Previously, my iPhone 14 Pro displayed HDR images really well (in Lightroom for iOS)

I recently discovered that this changed for the worse. Lightroom now reports that the iPhone 14 Pro is not capable of displaying HDR images, by turning the HDR part of the histogram red, indicating the display is not capable of HDR (see screenshot). The actual images is not showing in HDR anymore, so it is not just a faulthy histogram.

The same images display perfectly fine in HDR on my iPad Pro.

Any ideas?

[Charlie.D]

I'm not able to reproduce an issue.  Some images have more data to work with than others.. Raw images from the iOS or Lightroom Mobile camera will have more headroom to work with than JPGs, etc.  Can you attached a sample image?  If your file type (or a compressed zip of your image) won't attach to the thread, let me know.

[gerdusv12344227]

Hi Charlie

See the two attatched screenshots of the same image, which has signigicant data in the HDR range, especially the blue channel as can be seen in both histograms. This image was capturted by a Sony 7RM3 camera.

The first is from my iPhone 14 Pro. The red shading of all 4 HDR ranges indicates that Lightroom (incorrectly) recognizes the display of the iPhone as SDR capable only.

The 2nd is from my iPad Pro 12.9. As you can see, the HDR range is not shaded red,  indicating that Lightroom (correctly) recognize the iPad display as an HDR capable display.

Hope this helps.

[Jao vdL]

I would try deleting the app and reinstalling it and seeing if that resolves it.

[Conrad_C · Accepted solution]

Just curious, what is the brightness level of the iPhone display, and how does the HDR histogram change if you change the brightness? Normally, as you raise the brightness, the white bars get shorter under the HDR histogram (because there’s less headroom for previewing HDR highlights), but on my iPhone it still shows about half a white bar at full brightness.

If the HDR histogram does not change or show white bars even if you reduce brightness all the way, then that is definitely not normal and something is wrong somewhere.

Also, I just thought of something else, when I was trying to think of ways the iPhone display might be altered: In iOS Settings, do you have any visual Accessibility options enabled? I did an experiment on my iPhone: In the Accessibility settings, I enabled the Reduce White Point option, and bam…HDR range goes all red. Which makes sense, because that setting further limits display of highlights. I sometimes like to use Reduce White Point when even the minimum brightness is too bright at night, so I assigned it an Accessibility Shortcut, which I sometimes activate by mistake during the day…and when that happens, the display isn’t as bright as it should be. If this is not the answer, I hope that it at least points you in the right direction.

[gerdusv12344227]

I had reduced white point enabled and sitting at 25%. Disabling it completely solved my problem!

Thanks for your valueable input.

[Martin25379989dk4x]

Thanks a lot, this solved the problem on my iPhone13 Pro!!!!

[Kate38224114nb6w]

I've been having the exact same problem.

The first time, I deleted the app then redownloaded it and everything was fine for about a week.

The second time, nothing changed after redownloading the app so I had a look at my visual accessibility. The only mode I had on was Auto-Brightness and when I turned this off nothing changed. Also in the lightroom app import settings having the "HDR edit mode for new photos" on or off has made no difference (I assume the settings were on default when I had the app for the first time).

I'm really lost on what else could be causing this? I'm using the free version of the app and I also have an Iphone 14 Pro. It's really frustrating loosing everything each time I delete it so any help would be very much appreciated!!

[Kate38224114nb6w]

I forgot to add that my screen brightness is on full and night shift is off

[Conrad_C]

Have you checked anything else you can think of that would alter the brightness of the display, including outside of the normal controls? For example, in the answer above that was marked Correct, the cause turned out to be the Accessibility option Reduce White Point in iOS, which is not commonly used but could be accidentally enabled with an unintentional gesture shortcut.

Another way to test: Try any other app that supports HDR editing. If they do work as expected, then the problem you’re seeing is probably within Lightroom. But if the other HDR apps also don’t work, then the problem you’re seeing is at the iOS level and must be solved there. In other words, continue to use process-of-elimination troubleshooting.

[Kate38224114nb6w]

No other visual accessibilty aid was on except for auto-brightness (which is now turned off). I've also updated my phone to IOS 18, deleted and redownloded the app again and nothing has changed.  The bright parts of the photo just look really blown out when compared to the original, which is exactly what would happen each time the "HDR unavailable" error popped up.

I've just tried two other apps:

1) snapseed

This looked okay I think?

2) HDRmax

Lots of definition in this one - I'm assuming it's to do with the apps default settings for HDR?

Neither of these apps had the blown out look lightroom has though so I'm assuming it's working properly.

[Kate38224114nb6w]

a little update: lightroom decided to work for an hour earlier today but stopped working this evening about 6 hours later. 

no settings have been changed on my phone, screen brightness is still full, etc. so i assume this is a bug of the app 😕 super annoying 

[Yan-Yan]

I found out mine was not working because Low Power Mode was enabled, maybe this will help some.