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It's not a gimmick. It's a way to make electronic displays appear closer to what our eyes can see, and it looks great. The whole "HDR photography" thing from t

It's not a gimmick. It's a way to make electronic displays appear closer to what our eyes can see, and it looks great. The whole "HDR photography" thing from the last 10 years that's so overused in real estate photos is not truly high dynamic range; rather it compresses high dynamic range (often captured with multiple exposures) so it will fit onto ordinary (low) dynamic range displays. HDR displays are the real deal. Less compression (or maybe even no compression) is needed because the display can show a much wider range of colors natively. That said, HDR is pointless for the graphical elements of most GUIs. Where it shines is when you're editing photos or movies or viewing them in a window. That window is HDR but outside that window the dynamic range is normal. I saw a link about how Apple is doing this a few weeks ago but can't find it now. It's quite nice as a way to make photos and video really stand out brighter on the screen while letting the GUI elements recede more into the background.

spideymans 6y ago
>I saw a link about how Apple is doing this a few weeks ago but can't find it now. I believe this is the article and HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25315180 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25315180
- dreamcompiler 6y ago
  That's it. Thanks!
saagarjha 6y ago
https://prolost.com/blog/edr https://prolost.com/blog/edr
dingaling 6y ago
> Where it shines is when you're editing photos or movies or viewing them in a window Well it's a step closer but still not enough. Most pro camera RAW files are 14-bit, though many drop down to 12 or 10 bit in high-speed capture modes. There are already monitors that simulate 12-bit output from 10-bit input through internal LUTs but the internal pipeline has been stuck at 10-bit for over a decade. Though it was originally the domain of Quadro cards, it's now available from all discrete GPUs. Technology is still lagging behind what cameras can create let alone what our eyes see.
fillest 6y ago
The thing about compression is wrong. "HDR photography" compresess for the eyes (let's simplify and leave the brain out), it has nothing to do with displays. If a part of a photo is too dark, the details will be clipped out for your eyes, no matter how much bits they will be encoded with - it will be just too dark. In reality eyes can adjust the "exposure" on the fly because they recieve all the needed information always. But in a displayed digital image this information is already lost - eyes don't recieve all these bits, the display doesn't send them. In the editor you can adjust the "exposure" for the RAW files too - they have the needed information - but! - it is not a static image, because you are adjusting it, you are sending continuously different information to the eyes.
- jillesvangurp 6y ago
  Actually, your eyes have a better dynamic range than cameras or displays. More specifically, the process of going from a scene, to a photo sensor, to your monitor, and eventually to some paper is basically reducing dynamic range and either compressing or clipping to deal with the physical reality that each subsequent medium has less dynamic range. Real life has an infinite (practically) dynamic range that is perceived by our eyes with about 20 stops of EV (exposure values or stops). A high-end sensor would capture maybe 12-14 of those. So, at that point you are already making creative choices (e.g. expose for shadows or highlights). HDR in photography is the notion of combining multiple exposures to recover detail from a wider range of exposure values; which then get compressed down to the EVs of your monitor, which would be something of 8-10 stops typically (maybe more with these new fancy screens). And finally, printed materials have a dynamic range that is far less than that. 4-6 EVs. High bit rates in raw files (12 or 14 bits are fairly common) means you have more data to work with when compressing values or otherwise manipulating the image data; which is a lossy process that involves rounding errors that can build up. When black and white can be apart by as many as 14 EVs, those extra bits are nice to have as well. The point of high bitrate displays is more accurate color reproduction. Higher bit rates allow for more smoother gradients between colors. 8 bit color spaces were good enough for displays for a long time. But now that we have displays with higher contrast, deeper blacks, and brighter whites (i.e. a better dynamic range) the few extra bits of precision are useful. Especially on high end screens intended for graphics professionals, this is nice to have. Of course this only makes sense if the input has a large bitrate as well. Apple is involved in HDR video formats with high bitrate that are getting common on cameras. Also recent beasts like the new Sony Alpa 1 produce 8K video with 10 bits. So that requires some beefy hardware to process, which Apple of course provides. Down-sampling 10 to 8 bits on a monitor is nice to be able to avoid while you are editing; even if your output is going to be lower quality after you finish editing.
lm28469 6y ago
> Where it shines is when you're editing photos Only if you don't plan on printing them or if your audience also has (calibrated) HDR screens.

spideymans 6y ago

>I saw a link about how Apple is doing this a few weeks ago but can't find it now. I believe this is the article and HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25315180 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25315180

dreamcompiler 6y ago
That's it. Thanks!

saagarjha 6y ago

https://prolost.com/blog/edr https://prolost.com/blog/edr

dingaling 6y ago

> Where it shines is when you're editing photos or movies or viewing them in a window Well it's a step closer but still not enough. Most pro camera RAW files are 14-bit, though many drop down to 12 or 10 bit in high-speed capture modes. There are already monitors that simulate 12-bit output from 10-bit input through internal LUTs but the internal pipeline has been stuck at 10-bit for over a decade. Though it was originally the domain of Quadro cards, it's now available from all discrete GPUs. Technology is still lagging behind what cameras can create let alone what our eyes see.

fillest 6y ago

The thing about compression is wrong. "HDR photography" compresess for the eyes (let's simplify and leave the brain out), it has nothing to do with displays. If a part of a photo is too dark, the details will be clipped out for your eyes, no matter how much bits they will be encoded with - it will be just too dark. In reality eyes can adjust the "exposure" on the fly because they recieve all the needed information always. But in a displayed digital image this information is already lost - eyes don't recieve all these bits, the display doesn't send them. In the editor you can adjust the "exposure" for the RAW files too - they have the needed information - but! - it is not a static image, because you are adjusting it, you are sending continuously different information to the eyes.

jillesvangurp 6y ago
Actually, your eyes have a better dynamic range than cameras or displays. More specifically, the process of going from a scene, to a photo sensor, to your monitor, and eventually to some paper is basically reducing dynamic range and either compressing or clipping to deal with the physical reality that each subsequent medium has less dynamic range. Real life has an infinite (practically) dynamic range that is perceived by our eyes with about 20 stops of EV (exposure values or stops). A high-end sensor would capture maybe 12-14 of those. So, at that point you are already making creative choices (e.g. expose for shadows or highlights). HDR in photography is the notion of combining multiple exposures to recover detail from a wider range of exposure values; which then get compressed down to the EVs of your monitor, which would be something of 8-10 stops typically (maybe more with these new fancy screens). And finally, printed materials have a dynamic range that is far less than that. 4-6 EVs. High bit rates in raw files (12 or 14 bits are fairly common) means you have more data to work with when compressing values or otherwise manipulating the image data; which is a lossy process that involves rounding errors that can build up. When black and white can be apart by as many as 14 EVs, those extra bits are nice to have as well. The point of high bitrate displays is more accurate color reproduction. Higher bit rates allow for more smoother gradients between colors. 8 bit color spaces were good enough for displays for a long time. But now that we have displays with higher contrast, deeper blacks, and brighter whites (i.e. a better dynamic range) the few extra bits of precision are useful. Especially on high end screens intended for graphics professionals, this is nice to have. Of course this only makes sense if the input has a large bitrate as well. Apple is involved in HDR video formats with high bitrate that are getting common on cameras. Also recent beasts like the new Sony Alpa 1 produce 8K video with 10 bits. So that requires some beefy hardware to process, which Apple of course provides. Down-sampling 10 to 8 bits on a monitor is nice to be able to avoid while you are editing; even if your output is going to be lower quality after you finish editing.

lm28469 6y ago

> Where it shines is when you're editing photos Only if you don't plan on printing them or if your audience also has (calibrated) HDR screens.