Best file format for renderings

[ivanjay]

My render farm can generate renderings in so many different formats. I generally use tif's as to my knowledge these are one of the best.

 

What does everyone else use and why? Just trying to see if I should switch to something else or not for quality.

[carlotristan3d]

.exr for file management, you can search previous threads, this has been discussed in detail before.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

16bit EXR's though. It gives you robustness with efficient file size. So refreshing in a world of unnecessary bloat.

[adarsh]

+1 for exr

[rad_thundercat]

+1 exr

 

You can get great bit-depth and an alpha channel thrown in as well!

[ivanjay]

Can photoshop open an exr file?

[STRAT]

depends what you're doing and what for. you might not want the full flexability of exr files.

 

when i freeelanced in my spare bedroom office for years i just used JPG files. most adequate. (or TIFs if i needed alpha channels)

[Tommy L]

I would stay away from JPG. Maybe Strat got away with it for years, but its a lossy format. Unless you have storage space issues, there are two things to be aware of:

1: bit depth

2: non-lossy format (uncompressed)

 

Bit depth with give you values well beyond printable/viewable color, however, before you reach conclusion of post-production, you may wish to crank exposure for example.

I recently rendered an animation with the wrong gamma. It was a whole weekend wasted if not for 16 bit. I was able to adjust the gamma in post. With an 8bit image, this would have maxed out levels and resulted in flat areas.

 

Lossy formats can result in bad aliasing and artifacts.

 

I personally use 16 bit tiffs.

[aaronrumple]

*.exr 32 bit.

[erickdt]

16 bit TIFs. No plugins needed. More than enough bit depth to prevent banding.

 

E

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Ahhh... but 16bit EXR's are a lot smaller file size than 16bit tiff's.

[ihabkal]

depends what you're doing and what for. you might not want the full flexability of exr files.

 

when i freeelanced in my spare bedroom office for years i just used JPG files. most adequate. (or TIFs if i needed alpha channels)

 

jpegs saved by max are a lot worse than jpegs saved by photoshop by the way.

[STRAT]

yeah, i've heard that. C4D jpg's are superb.

[bjornkn]

Any tips on a good exr viewer for Windows, preferably accessible from the rclick context menu in Explorer?

They don't open/view in neither AcDSee nor XNview.

[erickdt]

Ahhh... but 16bit EXR's are a lot smaller file size than 16bit tiff's.

 

 

I did not know that.

 

Does Photoshop CS4 support Open EXR yet?

 

E

[braddewald]

I use the .tga format. Just something I picked up a while back. Anyone else have an opinion on them?

[ihabkal]

yeah, i've heard that. C4D jpg's are superb.

 

forgot you're a see for dee guy.

 

TGA were widely used in the 90s. still are good but when EXR came which is openable and editable in photoshop CS4 I had to use it instead.

I would rather use png than tga to be hoesnt with you.

[bjornkn]

TGA uses RLE encoding, which doesn't compress photos/renderings very much. Works best for larger flat areas of uniform color.

PNG works much better, and compresses good too.

TIFF is not one format, but a lot of different ones. Often the uncompressed version is used, making very big files. TIFF/LZH compresses quite OK.

 

BTW, LW saves fine jpgs too

[ihabkal]

is LW still used? I guess all 5 users love it.

[adarsh]

.exr files can be opened by

1) Quicktime

2) Framecycler

3) P3dO Explorer

4) IrfanView

 

cheers,

Adarsh

--------------

adarshpatil.com

[bjornkn]

Thanks for the tips I have Irfanview, but never use it much.

Nice to get some useful advice instead of bad, arrogant jokes.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

I did not know that.

 

Does Photoshop CS4 support Open EXR yet?

 

E

 

?? ....beyond the native EXR Photoshop plugin, or the free Open EXR Photoshop plugin?

 

Not sure if fnord added 64 bit support for ProEXR, but I would assume there 32bit version would work fine with CS4.

[ivanjay]

So in short it looks like I will not hurt staying the course with my current file type which is 16 bit tif's....

 

I would love to get the file size down, but that is only for emailing the final result. Storage on my end doesnt matter and we use yousendit so file size is of minimal concern to me compared to quality.

[Tommy L]

Your final emailed result does not need to be 16 bit. 8bit delivery is fine. The expansive color range is useful in post. Print will go down to 8bit for cmyk conversion and animated delivery will most likely be compressed into an 8bit environment anyway.

[ivanjay]

Almost everything I deal with is digital. Very rarely does our work actually get printed so I normally do not mind keeping the higher quality artwork. Again, file size is not an issue whatsoever.