HDR photo
Also known as: high dynamic range, HDR image, HDR photography
An HDR (high dynamic range) photo blends several exposures to keep detail in both bright and dark areas of a scene. Because the camera may save extra data or multiple frames, HDR images can be somewhat larger than a single standard shot.
- Blends multiple exposures for balanced highlights and shadows
- May store extra data or a second copy, adding size
- Applied automatically on most modern phones
How HDR works
When you photograph a high-contrast scene — a bright sky over a shadowed foreground — a single exposure cannot capture both well. HDR captures multiple frames at different exposures and combines them so highlights and shadows both retain detail.
Modern phones apply HDR automatically. Some also save the result in formats that carry extra brightness information for HDR displays, which preserves the wider range of tones.
Why it matters for storage
HDR processing can leave you with a richer file, and on some phones an extra standard copy is saved alongside the HDR version. That extra data, and any duplicate copy, takes additional space across a large library.
If storage is tight, you can review your camera settings for an option that keeps only one version of each shot, and clear out redundant standard copies that the camera saved next to their HDR counterparts.