I used (abused) HDR in an editorial project last year. We were working with an amazing illustrator doing a take on series of stories exploring the intersection of faith, storytelling, and technology.
As the early versions of the images emerged we thought we could used HDR to provide more or a aura to some elements. We tried to make it subtle and not overwhelm.
This example is my favorite:
https://restofworld.org/2024/divinity-altered-reality-muslim...
I think it worked well - and this technique would have been useful. We tried something similar but could not get it to work.
Our method was to use a stretched HDR video in the background.
Here are the steps I used:
In Photoshop create white image to proportions required. Save as MP4:
File > Export > Render Video
With the MP4, generate a HDR version in WEBM:
ffmpeg -i sample.mp4 -pix_fmt yuv420p10le -color_primaries 9 -color_trc 16 -colorspace 9 -color_range 1 -profile:v 2 -vcodec libvpx-vp9 sample.webm
ffmpeg -i sample.mp4 -pix_fmt yuv420p10le -color_primaries 9 -color_trc 16 -colorspace 9 -color_range 1 -profile:v high10 -vcodec libx264 sample.mp4 replies(15):