Working with HDR content in Photomator and Pixelmator Pro

What are HDR photos and videos?

HDR (or high dynamic range) technology enhances the visual quality of your photos and videos by retrieving more detail in bright and dark areas and expanding the color range. As a result, your visuals feature exceptional contrast, brighter whites, and more vibrant colors, bringing them closer to real life. When compared to Standard Dynamic Range (SDR), HDR content appears more vivid and lively, while SDR content may seem dull and flat.

What are the requirements for working with HDR content in Photomator and Pixelmator Pro?

To work with HDR content in Photomator or Pixelmator Pro, you’ll need a compatible HDR display, and the latest macOS and iOS versions. On non-HDR displays or displays not manufactured by Apple, the results may not be as striking, or HDR editing may not be available at all.

Supported Displays:

Full XDR displays. For the most striking results with HDR photos, use the latest Apple devices with full XDR displays. This includes iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro, Mac and iPad devices with XDR displays, and Pro Display XDR. HDR content will be loaded automatically on these displays.
Limited support HDR displays. MacBook Air, iMac, iMac Pro, Studio Display, and older MacBook Pro models not equipped with XDR displays provide limited HDR support with peak brightness ranging between 300 and 600 nits. When working on such displays, you can select whether you want to load the HDR data or not in Photomator or Pixelmator Pro settings. See the section How can I turn HDR on and off in Photomator or Pixelmator Pro? to learn how.
Non-Apple HDR Displays. These displays are supported but offer a slightly less streamlined editing experience. For example, when editing images in HDR, the entire screen, including the app interface, will be displayed in HDR instead of just the photo itself. Additionally, after syncing edits to Photos, only SDR thumbnails of photos will be visible in the Photos library. This limitation also applies to limited support HDR displays.

Check out this article on recommended HDR monitors for photography to get a more in-depth overview of HDR displays.

Operating Systems:

Photomator supports HDR editing on iOS 17 or iPadOS 17 on iPhone and iPad. On Mac, Photomator and Pixelmator Pro support HDR editing on macOS 14 Sonoma.

What HDR file formats are supported in Photomator and Pixelmator Pro?

Photomator and Pixelmator Pro both support opening and exporting HDR images in multiple different formats, including photos taken using an iPhone. This applies to all iPhone photos taken in 2020 and later (after the release of iOS 14 and iPadOS 14). Here’s a full list of supported HDR image formats for import and export in Photomator and Pixelmator Pro.

Photomator

Import	Export
HDR photos captured with iPhone
RAW and ProRAW
HEIC (10-bit)
AVIF (10-bit)
JPEG XL (10-bit)
PNG (16-bit)
TIFF (32-bit from Photoshop)
OpenEXR
Radiance HDR
HDR HEIC (for sharing HDR photos in Apple apps, such as Motion and Final Cut Pro)
HDR JPEG (for photos viewed in both SDR and HDR)
HDR PNG (for archiving HDR photos)
HDR Still Image Video (for uploading HDR photos on the web)
OpenEXR (for exporting HDR photos to other video and image editing apps)
HDR AVIF
Photomator

Pixelmator Pro

Import (Image Formats)	Export (Image Formats)
HDR photos captured with iPhone
RAW and ProRAW
HEIC (10-bit)
AVIF (10-bit)
JPEG XL (10-bit)
PNG (16-bit)
TIFF (32-bit from Photoshop)
OpenEXR
Radiance HDR
Photomator
Pixelmator Pro
HDR HEIC (for sharing HDR photos in Apple apps, such as Motion and Final Cut Pro)
HDR JPEG (for photos viewed in both SDR and HDR)
HDR PNG (for archiving HDR photos)
OpenEXR (for exporting HDR photos to other video and image editing apps)
HDR AVIF

| | Import (Video Formats) | Export (Video Formats) | | Pixelmator Pro MP4 QuickTime Movie HDR Still Image Video | Pixelmator Pro MP4 QuickTime Movie (HEVC, Apple ProRes 422 LT, Apple ProRes 422, Apple ProRes 422 HQ, Apple ProRes 422 Proxy, Apple ProRes 4444) HDR Still Image Video |

What other Mac apps are compatible with HDR?

While HDR videos are often used on many different apps and platforms, HDR image previews and editing are still relatively new. Currently, Apple apps don't fully support HDR images. Below is a table of the common HDR image formats and their compatibility with Apple apps.

	HEIC	AVIF	RAW	Apple ProRAW	JPEG XL	OpenEXR
Pixelmator Pro & Photomator	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Photos	✅ (only XDR displays)	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Preview	✅	✅	❌	❌	✅	✅
Quick Look	✅	✅	❌	❌	✅	✅
Finder	✅	✅	❌	❌	✅	✅
Safari	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
iWork Apps	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Motion & Final Cut Pro	✅	✅	❌	❌	✅	✅