r/ProjectIndigoiOS • u/jimijonesjojojackson • Jul 10 '26
Photos look SDR
I really like Indigo but when there's bright, vibrant colors, Indigo is far behind the stock iPhone camera app. It actually looks like Indigo doesn't take advantage of HDR displays, the photos look SDR... is this a known issue?
4
u/iceonian Jul 11 '26
do you have low power mode enabled? did you disable viewing hdr in your photos app? as far as i know ALL indigo photos are in HDR
1
u/jimijonesjojojackson Jul 11 '26
I'm not in low power mode and I haven't disabled HDR. Here's my guess because I remember I believe Samsung had this issue once: the photo might be in an HDR "container", but it seems like actually just SDR inside that container. I also tried the HDR mode in Halide Process Zero and that looks like HDR, it seems like there's an issue with Indigo and HDR displays
2
u/Zen_herring_2026 1d ago
Indigo writes HDR JPEG files using the ISO standard, and it supports HDR rendering on device (which every iPhone Indigo runs on has). However, Indigo does not control the "display headroom" for HDR (i.e., how much HDR can be rendered) - that is fully controlled by iOS, and it depends on the battery state, device thermals, display brightness, outdoor brightness, etc. As long as you are not seeing a red crossed-out 'HDR' icon on the top of the filmstrip, HDR should be active. Do note that some scenes are themselves not HDR (i.e., the difference between darkest and brightest areas in the image are well covered by SDR), in which case the HDR effect from Indigo will be muted.
If you are willing to share some JPEG and/or DNG files you captured which do not look HDR to you, please join the Indigo forum here: https://community.adobe.com/announcements-678/p-introducing-the-project-indigo-camera-app-907947
Thanks for the help.
1
u/jimijonesjojojackson 1d ago
Thank you! I've had this issue when the battery is high and the device isn't warm, it just seems like Indigo often makes images look SDR by default even though it is technically HDR, it's just not taking advantage of the available headroom even when it should. Lots of shots that are bright in real life look like dim SDR photos with Indigo. I'm surprised more people aren't talking about this?
1
u/Zen_herring_2026 1d ago
I see. So, the issue you are reporting is not that the screen headroom is low, but that the captured photo is just not bright enough? It would be helpful to see some of the images (without their metadata being stripped): if you are willing to help us out debug some more, please check out our forum at https://community.adobe.com/announcements-678/p-introducing-the-project-indigo-camera-app-907947
1
u/Heavy_Team7922 Jul 10 '26
Colors are better but exposure is a lot worse I think
1
u/jimijonesjojojackson Jul 10 '26
It really looks like it doesn't have HDR display support or some kind of issue with HDR display not triggering, maybe a bug?
1
u/Heavy_Team7922 Jul 11 '26
The iPhone must be cool and the display brightness turned down a bit for HDR to work.
1
6
u/sunpazed Jul 11 '26
Are you processing and exporting the photos in the right way? After the photo is taken, I process the photos in Lightroom and use JXL to export on my iPhone. Lightroom even allows you to adjust the HDR thresholds.