This page contains a regularly updated reference to all software I know to support HDR display for photos (if you are not familiar, this is totally unrelated to the old “HDR” most of you know – see here for why this new display hardware is so incredible). If I’ve missed anything, please comment below.
Of course, the software below only matters if you have an HDR display and have properly configured it. So be sure to also see my list of recommended HDR monitors. And if you need help ensuring your device is setup and optimized for HDR, please see my HDR setup & troubleshooting.
Editing / exporting HDR photos:
- Web Sharp Pro (v6+) plugin for Photoshop – create HDR exports for Instagram & Threads, enhance any image from SDR to HDR, etc.
- Lightroom – Includes outstanding support for HDR with a very simple interface, as well as multiple options for exporting HDR images. Support is available on all versions (Classic, Cloud, iOS, Android, and even web).
- Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) – Includes capabilities similar to Lightroom (supported on Mac and PC).
- Photoshop – 32-bit mode includes display support (you must enable a tech preview in PS preferences).
- Lumenzia (Photoshop plugin) – supports luminosity masking in 32-bit mode.
- Affinity – Includes great 32-bit HDR editing and display support, but unfortunately lacks the ability to export gain maps (please add a polite comment requesting gain map support).
- Pixelmator – This MacOS / iOS / iPadOS app supports HDR editing, exporting as HDR AVIF or JPG gain map.
- Zoner Photo Studio X – includes support for RAW processing as HDR
- GIMP provides support for 32-bit files, but I have not tested to see if it displays over-range values as HDR or simply shows a clipped display the way legacy versions of Photoshop do (i.e. you can edit HDR images, but I’m not sure if you will see the content as HDR or clipped).
Notable apps lacking HDR photo support:
Apple support for HDR:
Apple is a clear leader in HDR hardware. They offer great support in software, but there are some key gaps left to close.
HDR support includes:
- All web browsers (the only exception is FireFox, which lacks HDR support under MacOS). Safari / WebKit added extensive HDR support in the MacOS/iOS/iPadOS v26 updates.
- Apple Photos, Preview, and QuickLook (iOS / iPadOS v18+, MacOS v15+) support ISO JPG, Apple gain maps (JPG or HEIF), AVIF, and JXL.
- The native Camera app captures HDR natively with gain map support for both JPG and HEIC (and RAW would naturally support HDR editing)
- Apple Keynote – supports HDR in the presentation, as well as exporting slides as images (via file / export / images – use HEIC and choose “adaptive HDR” for a gain map for ISO HDR for simple HDR).
- Developer APIs to encode HDR.
- You can use your iPad as an HDR monitor for MacOS.
- Apple’s native file format support can vary a bit but generally includes: JPG with gain map (ISO or Apple encoding), AVIF, TIF, EXR. The main exception is for ISO support in iMessage / iCloud, as noted below.
- Key 3rd-party apps: Instagram, Threads, Lightroom (iPhone X or later, any iPad with an XDR display), Project Indigo.
Notable gaps in HDR photo support:
- iMessage can share Apple-encoded gain maps as HDR (those captured with your phone), but do not keep HDR when sharing a gain map with the official ISO encoding you would use when exporting any edited image (such as from Lightroom).
- iCloud sync similarly does not retain ISO gain maps.
- AirPlay / TvOS Photos app, as of v26. (DolbyVision HDR video is supported().
- Finder thumbnails do not show HDR for gain maps (TIF and EXR are supported, and QuickLook supports gain maps).
- custom ICC profiles (as there is no standard yet, see profiling / calibration info).
Windows support for HDR:
HDR support includes:
- All web browsers (other than FireFox).
Notable gaps in HDR support:
- The key limitation is that setup can be complicated (MacOS is often simpler).
- custom ICC profiles (as there is no standard yet, see profiling / calibration info).
- File Explorer does not show HDR
Android support for HDR:
HDR support includes:
- All web browsers (other than FireFox)
- Google Photos app (v7.24.0.747539053+) support Ultra HDR JPG
- Camera app captures HDR natively with gain map support
- Key 3rd-party apps: Instagram, Threads, Lightroom (Pixel 7 / Samsung S24 or later)
Notable gaps in HDR support:
- HDR headroom is limited to 2.3 stops, even though the hardware would easily support 3-4 stops. (these devices report 8-bit display support, so perhaps some future update to a 10-bit pipeline is needed to better utilize the hardware).
- Samsung S22 & S23 have limited HDR software support even though the hardware is great.
Social media / website support for HDR photos:
This is the key barrier holding up mainstream adoption of HDR photography (there are many great hardware options and software support is quite good, but HDR gain maps are stripped when uploading to most websites today). Thankfully, some key open-source tools have added support in late 2025, paving the way for more widespread support for sharing images on the web.
Roughly 95% of web browser now offer support for HDR (both JPG gain maps and AVIF gain maps) on monitors with support. More importantly, JPG gain maps are 100% safe (even legacy browsers from the 1990s will safely show a nice SDR result). The only gaps are in outdated browsers or FireFox (on a computer/Android).
All the following browsers have great HDR support:
- Chrome – Supports HDR AVIF, JPG with gain map (AVIF with gain map supported under dev flag chrome://flags/#avif-gainmap-hdr-images). Also supports HDR video.
- Chromium based browsers have similar support, including: Brave, Edge, Opera, Arc, ChatGPT Atlas, Vivaldi, Perplexity Comet, and Dia.
- Safari added support with the v26 updates to MacOS, iOS, and iPadOS. As this is based in WebKit, this means all iPhone & iPad browsers (even FireFox) have support.
HDR support includes:
- Instagram – This includes iOS, Android, and desktop browsers for HDR photos in posts (not Stories). See here for details to share properly. Also supports HDR video in Reels.
- Threads – Similar to Instagram, but with higher resolution images.
- LR Web Galleries – This is a great way to publish your images directly from Lightroom to the web.
- HDR video support is available on FaceBook. HDR photos aren’t really supported, but if you share a link to your IG / Threads posts, a viewer using a browser (but not the FB app) will see the HDR version, so there’s a little support.
- You may share AVIF or HDR gain maps via self-hosted WordPress if you select the “full” size option in the media library (which avoids transcoding, which does not yet support HDR photos). You can even use website builders like Elementor, such as I used to create this JPG gain map demo page.
- WordPress v6.8 was intended to add support for HDR AVIF (not AVIF gain maps), but it is buggy and needs further work.
- Discord supports HDR in their app as well as in the browser when you upload an HDR PNG (it must be encoded with a CICP tag, which is what you’ll get when exporting from LR / ACR).
- zonerama.com supports HDR display.
- I haven’t used it personally, but they do a nice job of rendering HDR (AVIF) where supported and automatically falling back to SDR (JPG) when it is not supported.
- Their paid tier also includes an option to embed your gallery on another website, which should make it easy to integrate if you have an existing site. If you try it, please let me know your thoughts in a comment below.
My free HDR e-book includes a test image to help confirm whether your preferred service supports important HDR file encodings.
Notable gaps in HDR support:
The following DO NOT yet support HDR photos (click links to help request support, your voice matters):
- 500px
- Adobe Portfolio (myporfolio.com sites)
- Behance
- BlueSky
- Facebook (supports HDR video in Reels)
- Flickr
- SmugMug
- SquareSpace
- WhatsApp: contact them via support in the app:
- iOS: Settings → Help → Contact Us.
- Android: Menu (⋮) → Settings → Help → Contact Us.
- Wix
- WordPress.com (you can use the “full” size to work with JPG gain maps, but derived images are not yet transcoded properly)
- X (Twitter)
- Zenfolio
When submitting a request, you might reference https://gregbenzphotography.com/hdr#developers as a resource for developers.
Note that both Facebook and WhatsApp are Meta platforms (ie same parent company as Instagram / Threads, which already support HDR photos).
HDR video:
This page is dedicated to HDR photography, but here are a few resources which may be helpful for sharing photos in a video format:
- LRTimelapse – create an HDR video timelapse from your HDR photos in Lightroom.
- Davinci Resolve works well with HDR photos when properly encoded (Web Sharp Pro can facilitate this)
[Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. I rarely endorse other products and only do when I think you would thoroughly enjoy them. By purchasing through these links, you are helping to support the creation of my tutorials at no cost to you.]
Transcoding (reprocessing) HDR photos:
If you are a developer or looking to add support for uploading HDR photos to your website, the following open-source libraries are available:
- libultrahdr is a Google-backed open-source C++ library and CLI tool which supports encoding and decoding JPG gain maps (AVIF / HEIC apparently planned per discussions in the repo). It also supports transcoding (resize, crop, mirror, compress), making it a critical library or dependency to support transcoding for images uploaded to websites. It currently supports JPG gain maps, and will add AVIF / HEIF gain map support in 2026.
- libvips supports for JPG gain maps (utilizes libultrahdr).
- Node.JS library Sharpsupports for JPG gain maps (utilizes libvips / libultrahdr).
- ImageMagick has added support for libultrahdr (need to enable a flag when compiling, see here for details).
