Greg Benz Photography

Apple Safari now supports HDR photography!

Apple just wrapped up their 2025 Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), and it was a very big year for photography and HDR display. Apple has been quietly adding substantial support for HDR hardware and software for years. The 2024 updates added HDR photography support for gain maps, the Photos app, Keynote, better support for 3rd-party HDR monitors and more. This year continues that trend with some very significant HDR updates.

Here’s a quick preview of what’s coming in the fall updates for photographers (everything will now be v26 – MacOS, iOS, iPadOS, etc).

Safari is adding support for HDR photography

Safari now supports HDR photos! This means more stunning and lifelike photos for the majority of iPhones, iPads, and Apple computers.

At 17% of global web traffic, Safari support closes most of the existing gap in HDR browser support. Combined with the other browser which already support HDR photos (Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera, and Vivaldi), this accounts for over 90% of all web traffic (per statcounter.com).

The impact for existing HDR hardware is even more significant. Apple laptops and monitors have offered HDR hardware since 2018 and having support in the default browser on MacOS is a big deal. But even more import is the impact this has for mobile devices. The browser engine which powers Safari is called “WebKit” and that’s the key in the v26 updates because WebKit is the basis of all browsing on iPhones and iPads. So while we’ve been able to use Chrome on MacOS for HDR support for a long time now, the iOS and iPadOS versions of Chrome have lacked HDR photo support because they use WebKit under the hood. This means all browsing on an iPhone or iPad will support HDR (even the mobile version of FireFox, which is now the only notable browser lacking HDR photo support under MacOS).

Let’s put that in perspective using some estimated sales volumes. This update unlocks HDR browsing for all the following hardware already in use:

• iPhone 11 and beyond: thats six years time roughly 225 million iPhones per year for ~1.3 billion phones.
• High end iPads like the M4 Pro (this is relatively small, ~10 million units)
• Apple computers since 2018. That’s roughly 100 million devices, of which 8% use Safari to give us ~8 million people with new HDR browsing support.

These are rough estimates based on web sources and ChatGPT, but it would be fair to say that the total impact here is likely more than 1 billion devices which will soon be upgraded to support HDR photos in the browser.

This is a major inflection point for the adoption of HDR, and should help spur significant growth in 2026. Anyone can already share HDR photos with a large audience on Instagram (see how). You can easily share HDR JPG gain maps on your website (use the “full” size option in the WordPress media library). And I have a list of developer resources for those looking to add support via open source libraries or your own custom tools.

As a note for developers, Safari is also adding support for the new CSS “dynamic-range-limit” property to help manage pages with mixed SDR and HDR content (such as feeds, grids, and portfolios). You may specify “no-limit” to allow full HDR, “standard” to show all images within the SDR range, or “constrained” to allow modest HDR (ie some, but not as bright as “no-limit”).

Multi-tasking in iPadOS 26

The M4 iPad Pro has the best HDR display for a consumer computing device I’ve probably ever seen. It’s “tandem stack” OLED XDR display offers 4 stops of HDR, 1000 nits full screen, perfect blacks, and outstanding color accuracy. You can even use it as an HDR monitor for your Mac! However, it’s software been somewhat limiting for serious work compared to laptops or Surface Pro tablets (which run full Windows). iPadOS 26 makes the iPad a much more practical device for serious work, which should appeal to photographers who wish to travel light.

iPadOS 26 makes several changes to improve productivity workflows, including:

• Support for showing multiple application windows and even overlap them, just like MacOS. This makes it much easier to work across multiple applications at the same time.
• An improved Files app to more easily manage content on the iPad.
• A menu bar for the familiar and powerful options we’ve come to expect from computers.
• The Preview app, for better PDF support (including drawing, annotating, and signing).
• A better cursor, for more precise work with a trackpad or mouse.

So while these aren’t updates aimed at photography, this makes the iPad (which has an outstanding display and camera) a much more powerful and practical tool for photographers.

Here’s a great overview of the updates:

A simplified camera app

The iOS / iPadOS camera app has always been pretty simple. That’s either a strength (easy to use) or a weakness (lack of control) depending on your level of skill and goals. I suspect many photographers will view this as a negative. Options such as portrait mode are now more hidden and take more effort to switch.

Personally, I think there are some good ideas in here. Most people don’t think about photos and videos nearly as deeply as photographers and just want it to offer something pretty good with minimal effort or expertise. My main concern is that showing only 2 modes does not seem simpler. It takes longer to navigate, and users who don’t need other modes will probably encounter the anyway by accidentally over-scrolling.

If you don’t care for the redesign, there are many great alternative apps. And that’s really the beauty of using the great camera hardware built into an iPhone or iPad, there are many options to pick the interface and features you like. I recommend taking a look at Pro Camera or Halide (Mark III coming fairly soon with promises of big updates for HDR), which are both great 3rd-party apps.

The primary limitation with 3rd-party apps is that you cannot launch them from the lock screen camera icon. I would love to see Apple let you assign it to your favorite app. If you have a newer phone with a “camera control” button, you can do that and it is just as fast. Just go to iOS Settings / Camera / Camera Control and select your preferred camera app under the “launch camera” dropdown. One tip: there is a momentary pause when you click it because the phone is trying to use FaceID to unlock the phone. If you look at the screen as fast as possible, you’ll open your camera app more quickly from a locked screen.

End of life for old Intel-based Macs is now more clear

If you don’t already have an Apple Silicon MacBook Pro,  the M1 and later 14-16″ laptops are truly stunning. Outstanding HDR displays, performance, and battery life make any of them an enormous upgrade over the previous generation of Intel-based processors. But if you’re eager to keep the computer you have for as long as possible, Apple just offered more clarity on when you can expect to start seeing software issues with those old computers.

Apple announced that MacOS v26.x (“Tahoe”) will be the last update for Intel-based machines, no MacOS 27 for you. There may be ongoing security updates for a while, so they should be viable for about 2 more years.

On the flip side, Apple also announced that Rosetta 2 will remain through MacOS 27 (ie good until fall of 2027). So we have about 2 more years before old software stops working on new computers. If you’re still using Rosetta2 for some program, I would contact the vendor and let them know you’d like to see it updated to run natively on Apple Silicon. Not only will that keep working into the future, but the program should run twice as fast. Though candidly, it’s been almost five years and most software which hasn’t been updated for Apple Silicon already is probably a sign that it’s abandoned and you should start considering alternatives. I can’t think of any widely used photography apps which still require Rosetta, but please comment below if you know of any.

What’s missing from the v26 updates?

I’m skipping over some minor details like new developer APIs to add an HDR color picker to apps, so even my tailored list for photographers is incomplete. There’s a lot in the v26 lineup. There are also a few things I’ve been hoping to see, but have not so far. WWDC only covers the highlights and there are often many great features which are simply not mentioned in the keynote, detailed sessions, or even in the first developer betas. And many interesting features always come after the initial major updates every fall in the various “dot” releases.

I have not yet seen an indication that the following updates and fixes are in the v26 updates:

• Support to share HDR images over AirPlay to show them via AppleTV? Most people have big screen TVs and this would be a very powerful way to show gorgeous images.
• Support for HDR photos in the TvOS Photos app? AirPlay would likely get more use, but this would be a great way to passively update the content on the TV as well as support automatic slideshows on the TV’s screensaver.
• Fix for the iMessage bug where HDR photos are not transmitted as HDR? Support was announced last year, but hasn’t worked so far.
• Fix for sending AVIF images via iMessage? This is a great format to save space and share HDR, but so far I’ve only seen them show as unusable thumbnails when texted.
• Fix for syncing HDR images via iCloud?

If you’re aware of other key updates which you think would be of great interest to photographers, please comment below.

The remaining HDR gaps in the Apple ecosystem are getting smaller and smaller. The overall support is tremendous and it’s great to see year after year improvements and expansion of capability. This year’s Safari support is greatly welcome and will be very high impact.

Yoga Aura – the best HDR PC laptop?

The MacBook Pro has had an outstanding HDR display for nearly five years. There is simply no PC laptop on the market which matches its performance for HDR photography, but some new options from Lenovo are finally getting close. In this review, we’ll look at how well it meets the needs of photographers and how it compares to the MacBook Pro.

The 2025 Lenovo 2-in-1 Aura Edition offers:

• A DisplayHDR True Black 1000 certified OLED monitor (Lenovo is the only company to achieve this thus far)
  • Up to 1,100 nits peak
  • 14″ or 16″ size
  • Delta e < 1 for great accuracy out of the box
  • Touch screen with a completely flexible hinge lets you use it like a tablet (similar to Surface Pro) or fold it into a tent shape to show movies with a very narrow footprint.
• Intel® Core™ Ultra 7 256V or 258V CPU
• up to 32GB RAM
• up to 1TB SSD
• WiFi 7
• BlueTooth 5.4

HDR display

Display HDR True Black 1000 offers a stunning level of support for HDR photography, and Lenovo is the first company to be certified for this level of performance. I saw the Lenovo 2 in 1 Aura Edition Laptop a couple weeks ago at a conference and was immediately impressed. I ordered one immediately to replace my 600 nits OLED PC laptop. Put simply, this is a stunning upgrade and a truly gorgeous display unlike any other PC laptop I have ever seen (at least with an Intel chip, the SnapDragon version of this laptop caught my attention last year – but Adobe does not support Photoshop plugins under the ARM version of Windows).

The Yoga Aura realistically offers up to 3.5 stops of HDR headroom, very good color accuracy, and a great HDR experience. This is the first HDR PC laptop I can recommend without hesitation, this is a great OLED monitor. If you have a strong preference for Windows and want HDR support in the laptop display itself, this is a very unique and compelling product.

There are options to upgrade the display to a higher (4K) resolution, DO NOT choose the upgraded display. The base resolution is already excellent and the premiums display is actually a downgrade as it offers less HDR capability.

To use the Aura for HDR, it is important that you make a couple of changes in Windows System Settings / Display:

• Enable HDR mode. This is required for HDR support.
• In the options available by clicking > next to the HDR toggle, slide the “HDR content brightness” to the far right (100). This ensures HDR highlights won’t clip when viewing content (this is a confusing control and I would prefer to see Windows improved to eliminate it).
• See my HDR setup and troubleshooting guide if you have external monitors or other questions.

How does it compare to the XDR display in the M4 MacBook Pro (MBP)?

• The Aura offers perfect blacks (as it uses an OLED display).
  • This is nice for watching movies in a dark room, but the benefit is fairly modest for photography.
  • There is a very clear difference under extreme conditions (deep shadow detail when viewing in a dark room), but this isn’t applicable for most real edits.
  • The highly reflective glossy display on the Aura further limits your ability to appreciate the deep blacks unless the room is very dark.
•  The MacBook Pro (which uses a mini-LED display) offers up to 1600 nits peak vs 1200 for the Aura.
  • In practical terms, this means you’ll see about an extra 0.5 stops of HDR headroom.
  • This is very nice to have, but the Aura does very well.
• MBP offers more accurate display for very bright HDR content, as it almost always avoids the need to use ABL (automatic brightness limiter):
  • Full screen: MBP offers 1000 nits vs 600 nits for the Aura.
  • 50% window: Aura supports 975 nits
  • Realistically, either can handle a wide range of HDR content under controlled lighting. Where the MBP pulls ahead is when using the display in bright ambient light, which isn’t ideal for editing even if the MBP offers a more accurate display in that scenario.
• MBP can be more easily used for productivity in bright ambient light
  • The optional nano-texture coating on the MBP significantly reduces reflections for a much more readable display in bright surroundings. If you turn off the display outside, you’ll see a matte black screen with zero reflections.
  • If you similarly turn off the Aura display outside, it’s like looking in a mirror. The reflections are very notable.
  • MBP offers up to 1000 nits SDR (600 via manual controls, 1000 when variable brightness at max and bright ambient light)
  • Aura offers 450 nits SDR
• MBP is easier to use for HDR thanks to MacOS
  • The MBP supports HDR with default settings. There is nothing you need to do, everything just works and looks amazing by default – whether you wish to edit for HDR, print, or do productivity work.
  • To use HDR in the Aura, you must enable HDR mode in Windows System Settings / Display. You must further go into the HDR sub-section and move the “HDR content brightness” to the right (100) in order to avoid some highlight clipping which you will otherwise see under the default settings.

Overall, this gives the MBP a modest but clear edge over the Aura under controlled lighting. Many photographers probably wouldn’t notice the difference if you didn’t put them side by side in that scenario. But in bright ambient or outdoor conditions, the MBP has a substantial advantage over the Aura. The optional ($150) nano-texture coating is a game changer if you travel with the laptop or otherwise use in bright conditions.

Performance for Photography

The Aura offers a few configurations based on display size, with the 16″ offering the highest performance options. The current lineup choices are:

• 14″ with Intel® Core™ Ultra 7 256V with 16GB RAM (do not buy this)
• 14″ with upgraded Intel® Core™ Ultra 7 258V Processor and 32GB RAM (for $80, everyone should get this upgrade)
• 16″ with Intel® Core™ Ultra 9 185H 32GB RAM (the GPU may be upgraded for $200, which is probably not high impact unless you do video as well)

The 14″ comes with a 512GB hard drive and an optional 1TB upgrade (whereas only the 1TB is offered on the 16″). The upgraded processor and hard drive are a no brainer on the 14″, and the upgraded GPU on the 16″ probably isn’t worth it for more users. So you’re probably looking at $1550 for the 14″ or $1700 for a 16″ with a CPU upgrade from 8 to 12 cores to support better multi-tasking. This makes the 16″ the best choice if you do not care about weight. However, the 14″ is 3 lbs vs 5 for the 16″, so it isn’t a trivial difference.

The 14″ scores a very respectable 65.0 weighted score in my G-Bench tests. That’s slightly slower than the 57 in an M1 Max and about half the speed of the 34 in an M4 Max. However, those are the highest level CPU upgrades offered by Apple in laptops which cost roughly $8,000. I do not have performance data for Apple’s entry-level M3 or M4, but I would expect the least capable MBP outperform the Aura – but at a level where the Aura is still competitive.

Black Magic Disk Speed shows 3400 MB/s write and 3800 MB/s read speeds. This isn’t nearly as fast as the M4 MBP (8700 and 5300), but is still incredibly fast. Very few people would notice the difference, this is a very fast internal drive. And if you need external storage, the TB4 ports will support very high speeds.

Battery life and fans

I’ve been quite impressed with the battery life on this laptop. I had expected it would lag significantly behind the MBP because it has an Intel rather than ARM processor. Not only did I find that not to be the case, but it actually outperformed the MBP in my (limited) testing. I charged both to 100%, set the display to roughly the same brightness, and then had them play the same YouTube HDR video for a couple hours and a run a series of the same tests in Photoshop. At the end of my tests, the MBP was down to 22% while the Lenovo was 34%. While hardly scientific and your results will vary based on usage, I believe the results at least indicate the battery life on the Aura is generally pretty good. As a photographer, I’ve never seen battery performance on the MBP come close to the all day stats you see for simple tasks like watching video or web browsing, and you’ll similarly find the Aura does well but is going to need an outlet to make it through a full day.

I was rather surprised at the Aura outlasting the MBP for a couple of reasons. The Intel processor was one concern (vs the efficiency of ARM), and the other was heat given my experience with the fans. Unfortunately, the fans run quite often on the Aura on moderate loads. They aren’t terrible, but it stands out in comparison to the MBP, where you almost never hear the fans in normal use. When running my G-Bench test, I measured 22 dB ambient noise most of the time (which is to say zero noise, that’s just the ambient for the room). The fans briefly hit 27 dB, giving an average reading of 23 dB for the entire test. On the other hand, the Yoga was at 38-41 dB most of the time, for an overall average of 37 dB. You are going to hear this laptop in quiet environments.

I initially thought the fans themselves would draw quite a bit of power and be a concern, but these cooling systems seem quite different. The Aura case does not conduct much heat and it relies heavily on the fans to remove heat. The MBP’s case actually is much warmer to the touch and appears to be a significant source of passive cooling that helps minimize fans. This means the Aura is more comfortable sitting directly on your lap, but the hotter exterior of the MBP isn’t a serious concern.

Other features (ports, speakers, etc)

The Aura is a well rounded machine which generally compares very well with the MBP in other areas:

• The Aura offers a touch screen and highly flexible display hinge.
  • You can directly tap, type, and swipe on the screen like a Surface Pro tablet. You can purchase a stylus to help use it as a tablet, which I find very interesting and intend to get in the near future.
  • When folded like a tablet, the keys are disabled. You can just use a stylus or your fingers and don’t need to worry about accidental key presses – even though the keys will be exposed on the bottom.
  • You can also fold it into a tented shape to use for showing movies while taking less horizontal space or to make it easier to use as a tablet without a keyboard under your hands.
  • These capabilities are probably not critically important to most photographers, but they are unique to the Aura and will certainly appeal to some users.
• Connectivity:
  • MBP offers 3 Thunderbolt 4 ports (TB5 with the Pro or Max MBP). Lenovo offers 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports,  1 very high speed USB-C (USB4) port, and a USB-A.
  • MBP offers an integrated SD card reader and HDMI port. The Aura lacks these, but you can support these via cheap dongles.
  • Both offer a standard 3.5mm headphone jack.
  • Both offer fingerprint readers (to set up the Aura go to Windows settings / accounts / sign-in options / fingerprint recognition). The Aura can also use its camera to log in via face detection.
  • Both offer great wireless connectivity, with the Aura being slightly better for the future (WiFi 7 and BlueTooth 5.4 vs WiFe 6e and BlueTooth 5.4).
• The speakers on the Aura are excellent and I find compare well with audio experience the MBP.
• Both have attractive designs that look and feel like high quality computers. However, fingerprints are rather obvious on the Yoga (but you rarely see them on the MBP).
• The 14″ Aura is half a pound lighter than the MBP, while the 16″ Aura is slightly heavier than the corresponding MBP.
• The keyboard and trackpad are great on both (I personally find the extra keys on the right side of the Aura keyboard a bit awkward, but it’s probably just a matter of getting used to it so that I don’t alter performance or white balance by accident when trying to click the backspace or enter keys).

Conclusions:

The Aura is an excellent laptop for HDR and the first PC laptop which has truly impressed me for HDR. The display is incredible, and I was very happy with performance and battery life for a more friendly laptop. The fan noise is unfortunate, but not a deal breaker. The biggest limitation are the limitations for upgrading to premium options which might appeal to those with larger budgets.

If you need or strongly prefer a Windows laptop for HDR photography, it’s a great option. If you are open to MacOS and have a moderate budget, the MBP is a better option for most photographers given overall performance, premium options (especially the anti-glare screen), lack of fan noise, and the simpler HDR experience offered under MacOS vs Windows.

If you are open to either operating system, this is probably a good way to consider your options:

• If you are seeking a budget 14″ display, the entry-level MBP is much closer in price and offers excellent value.
  • Both are great options here, but the 14″ Aura is still lower cost and lower weight.
  • If you’re willing to spend a little more, the nano-texture display on the MBP makes it a clearly better laptop for working in brighter environments.
• If you are seeking a budget-oriented 16″ laptop for HDR, the 16″ Aura clearly offers the best price and value. The Aura is $1,000 less than the cheapest 16″ MBP with 1TB SSD.
• If you have a budget for $2000-5000, MBP offers a wide range of upgrades which put it in a completely different class of computer than the top-tier Aura. You may select the following upgrades:
  • nano-texture display (highly recommended)
  • Much more powerful CPUs / GPUs
  • Up to 8TB SSD (larger is nice, but this is the one option you can add externally and save money)
  • Up to 128GB RAM (48-64GB recommended)
  • (see my M4 MBP review for details on these options)

The Lenovo 2-in-1 Aura Edition is a very exciting development as it helps bring excellent HDR support to a wider audience. It will be very interesting to see when other PC laptop manufacturers offer similarly premium HDR displays, if higher spec options are offered to compete with the most premium MBPs, and how support for SnapDragon / WinARM evolves over the coming years.

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