If you're feeling a little overwhelmed by the new #photos app in #iOS18, this is what I did to dial it back to something simpler.
It's worth noting that almost all of my photos are in Lightroom CC, so it's mostly just videos and some random snapshots but I find this more useful than the old interface. :)
@halide sorry if this is getting spammy, but more on HDR editing benefits. :)
Got out of a little XC backpack, my partner took these shots with an old XS. Much less dramatic use of HDR headroom, but it actually makes a noticeable difference on color quality! The tiny bit of red that gets clipped at the top makes the sandstone look too yellow in both cases. Instead of having to magenta tint or cool which throws off everything else (or underexpose), boom it's good to go!
@halide this example pushes the dynamic range of RAW (non Pro). Some noise in the shadows on the bottom from underexposing it three stops, but in HDR the blue sky above it shows up very nicely, which was a major point of the shot.
This arguably should be in ProRAW, but then the white Estrada sandstone in the foreground would be "watercolory". A personal preference thing, but HDR makes normal RAW a viable choice (again SDR screenshot of HDR photo, but histogram tells story).
@halide Not a very interesting shot, but pretty high contrast. In HDR I don't lose cloud detail, but I also don't have to overpull the shadows in the cliffs up.
It feels like the sweet spot is to over-expose between 1-2 steps over SDR range, above that and brights get weird color information (blue snow, magenta reflections, etc), below that and you're pulling up shadows and generating noise needlessly.
@halide This is an unprocessed RAW shot, everything zeroed out. A tricky composition with late afternoon sun above the phone with a backlit ridge and bright reflections on the creek in the foreground. Shot -0.9 or -1.2, the extra info is subtle but the sky doesn't look like it has a grey film on it. The water highlights an are a bit much, but locking to 1-2 stops, playing with whites, dropping magenta etc would work.
Compared to the -2.0 exposure to keep it in SDR it's much nicer looking!
@halide a somewhat random "hold down my camera and shoot a flower in the shade with bright sky behind it" shot at -0.3 or -0.6 ended up with a perfectly exposed poppy and nice blues in the sky behind - something that would have needed ProRAW and the subsequent loss of detail earlier.
I struggle to find a shot that looks better in SDR vs HDR, and being able to expose hotter / ETTR compared to SDR compositions leads to better results that in general require less adjusting in post.