CGarchitect.com - View Single Post - How do you save a 32-bit .HDR as a 16-bit file

SandmanNinja · March 2nd, 2008

Hi...

I've been doing some tutorials on Mental Ray and have a question.

I've turned on 32-bit floating point on my frame buffer and have saved the renders out as a .HDR file. This lets me take them into Photoshop CS2 and play with the contrast/intensity/etc for some Post Work.

I must say, the ability to take a horribly exposed render and 'save' it by adjusting a slider or two in photoshop is amazing!

Question: Photoshop wouldn't let me Save-As or Export the 32-bit .HDR image as anything 16-bit. I'm just thinking down the road that once the image is adjusted and is just the way you want it, I'd like to save it as a JPG or BMP to be able to put on a website for a client to be able to see.

I realise that I'll be losing the upper 16-bits in doing this, but the image can be the prettiest render in the world but worthless if the client cannot see it.

Also - my programming days are re-visiting me. I know when dealing with 16-bit integers in a programming environment, they were a LOT faster than 32-bit floating point variables. (Well, it doesn't matter about the number of bits - int's are faster in an executable than floating points). Does this translate over to rendering? As is, would the render take longer to do as a 32-bit floating point as compared to a 16-bit integer?

Thanking you...

-Joel

March 2nd, 2008	#1 (permalink)
SandmanNinja Moderator Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Ballarat, Victoria, Australia Posts: 1,375 Name: Joel Callahan	How do you save a 32-bit .HDR as a 16-bit file Hi... I've been doing some tutorials on Mental Ray and have a question. I've turned on 32-bit floating point on my frame buffer and have saved the renders out as a .HDR file. This lets me take them into Photoshop CS2 and play with the contrast/intensity/etc for some Post Work. I must say, the ability to take a horribly exposed render and 'save' it by adjusting a slider or two in photoshop is amazing! Question: Photoshop wouldn't let me Save-As or Export the 32-bit .HDR image as anything 16-bit. I'm just thinking down the road that once the image is adjusted and is just the way you want it, I'd like to save it as a JPG or BMP to be able to put on a website for a client to be able to see. I realise that I'll be losing the upper 16-bits in doing this, but the image can be the prettiest render in the world but worthless if the client cannot see it. Also - my programming days are re-visiting me. I know when dealing with 16-bit integers in a programming environment, they were a LOT faster than 32-bit floating point variables. (Well, it doesn't matter about the number of bits - int's are faster in an executable than floating points). Does this translate over to rendering? As is, would the render take longer to do as a 32-bit floating point as compared to a 16-bit integer? Thanking you... -Joel