Android added system-level support for HDR photos in Android 14 last year. Compatible phones can now take so-called Ultra HDR photos, which include gain maps with dynamic range data, and display them in varying degrees of true HDR. Screen brightness for the entire image. Mishaal Rahman, writing for Android Authority, notes that the latest versions of both Android and iOS support a common standard for gain map metadata, meaning HDR photos taken on either platform can be displayed properly on both. It says it means.
About Mishal’s Ultra HDR
Ultra HDR in action on Android 14: The future of photography
Android 14 adds support for Google’s new Ultra HDR image format. Learn how it changes the way you take and display photos.
ISO 21496-1 is a relatively new standard for encoding gain map metadata into HDR images. Android 15, iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15, and Windows all support ISO 21496-1, so at a basic level, most platforms that can display HDR images on your Android phone or iPhone can now available in true HDR. . In contrast to the simulated HDR effects that have been common in mobile photography for years, real HDR images appear at varying levels of brightness. The display pixels that make up the highlights of a photo produce more light than the pixels that make up the dark areas. The end result is a mobile photo that, in theory, looks more true to the scene our eyes saw that day.
However, there’s a little more to this. Android 15 and iOS 18 both provide APIs for ISO 21496-1 gain maps, but it is up to individual app developers to take advantage of these APIs, so all apps must HDR compatibility is not immediately available. Google Photos on Android currently supports viewing HDR photos taken with an iPhone, but it’s unclear whether that’s due to Photos offering ISO 21496-1 support, Luhrmann said. Chromium-based browsers such as Chrome and Edge on Windows also support the ISO 21496-1 standard, but the display you’re viewing them on must also support HDR.
Standardization is coming to HDR photography
When Ultra HDR functionality was introduced to Android last year, support was limited and there were questions about when, or even if, the exciting new development would catch on. Now that Google, Apple, and others appear to have agreed on a viable cross-platform standard for encoding gain map metadata into HDR photos, things should move quickly. It shouldn’t be long before you can text HDR photos to your iPhone-owning friends. The entire dynamic range will also be visible to the other end.
related
Best camera phones of 2024
Is the phone only for calls?
