One current challenge with True HDR (High Dynamic Range) Photography is displaying and sharing images in all their resolution and dynamic range glory. Effective ‘channels’ for this can be Vimeo, YouTube or your very own TV. Vimeo and YouTube have had the capability of streaming videos in high resolution and HDR for many years.
Here is a video I recently produced to demonstrate what is possible on Vimeo. For the best quality, set the quality to 4k if your broadband connection allows. If your system is compatible, you’ll be able to see it in HDR format.
It’s surprisingly easy to create a slideshow of HDR photographs, and I use a combination of:
- Adobe Camera RAW (or Photoshop) to edit my RAW images, and saving them in JPEG XL format
- Apple Final Cut Pro video editing software. The output file from Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop (.jxl) is fully compatible with Apple Final Cut Pro video editing software and so can be easily added to the video timeline.
Before you add your photos, make sure you have set up your Final Cut Pro library to Wide Gamut HDR and you set up a project with the following options:
- 8k Video Format
- 7680×3840 Resolution
- Rate 60p
- Apple ProRes 422 HQ Rendering
- Wide Gamut HDR – Rec 2020 PQ
Within Final Cut Pro, I like to use the Ken Burns cropping tool, to keep things interesting and to ‘zoom’ in to the amazing detail on offer. As I use a Sony A7R V camera with 60 megapixel resolution, I can crop in substantially and still retain excellent detail on a 4k TV.
You can add a soundtrack for interest.
For output to Vimeo (or YouTube), save to Apple Devices 4k, selecting HEVC-10 bit in 3840×2160 resolution. Just upload the file and wait for it to be processed. Processing to 4k resolution usually is done quickly, but processing to create HDR output can take days or even weeks to appear. I prefer to use the paid Vimeo service, which is used to show videos on this website. The quality is better than YouTube (with less video compression), there are no ads for the viewer, you eliminate all the links to other videos and HDR processing takes minutes rather than days.
As Vimeo and YouTube are widely accessible on HDR-capable mobile phones, tablets, notebooks and TVs, they allow you to display your HDR photographs in lots of different ways.
As an alternative to Vimeo or YouTube, within your own home, you may wish to stream your video onto a 4k HDR TV if you have one. Nothing beats seeing amazing images on a big screen. I use an Apple TV 4k box and it is very easy to set up media sharing so that I can display all the videos I create on my main OLED 4k TV (and other devices in my home).