HDR vs SDR

A gallery for comparing High Dynamic Range (HDR) and Standard Dynamic Range (SDR) photographs side by side.

Each tile shows the same scene in both formats. Tap a thumbnail to open the viewer, then use the HDR/SDR toggle (or the up/down arrow keys) to flip between the two — the difference is visible on an HDR-capable display and browser.

How to read these photos

• SDR is the legacy standard most screens have shown for decades — limited highlight headroom, compressed shadows.
• HDR preserves the bright parts of a scene (sun, lamps, specular highlights, bright skies) at their actual relative luminance, and extends the shadow range with finer gradation.
• On a non-HDR display, the HDR version will look only marginally different — or even worse, because the browser tone-maps it back into the SDR gamut.
• The HDR images are encoded as AVIF, SDR as JPEG.