How do you save your images?

[ShynnSup]

I am curious.

I always save as PNG for lossless compression, but I then get this menu asking about 8bit or 16bit and I have no idea what to choose.

I always go with 16 bit just in case...



I wonder, for Multi Pass to work... I need all my channels saved the same way right? That is if I choose PNG 16 bit all passes have to be saved that way. But it can also work with JPG as long as I save all passes as JPG?

Thanks!

[John_Do]

Hi,

If you're using multipass save yourself the pain of managing many files and use multilayered EXR. 16 bitsfor a bit more room in post ( exposure and banding on subtles shades / nuances) with a lossy compression setting to save quite a lot of space.

You'll need a plugin to properly read the multilayered files in PS :

https://www.exr-io.com or https://www.fnordware.com/ProEXR/

[ShynnSup]

Thanks! I don't work as often with passes so I kinda just save a few by hand. I wonder if saving one pass as PNG 16bit while the other as 8bit will work? Just curious that's all, might as well try it myself.

[John_Do]

For sure it will work, the restricting factor will be your .psd file bit depth.

[tuami]

Hi,

If you're using multipass save yourself the pain of managing many files and use multilayered EXR. 16 bitsfor a bit more room in post ( exposure and banding on subtles shades / nuances) with a lossy compression setting to save quite a lot of space.

You'll need a plugin to properly read the multilayered files in PS :

https://www.exr-io.com or https://www.fnordware.com/ProEXR/

hi i have a basic question, are there any differences when using psd 16bit multipass files versus exr 16bit multipass files?

 i don't understand the advantage of using exr instead of directly using psd files (For Photoshop workflow).
 i can directly open and save it in ps, have all layers..

maybe someone can clarify for me thanks

[Beanzvision]

I'm definitely no expert in this area but from what I understand, both PSD and EXR's support 16bit multipass images and the difference may just come down to workflow, software or compression choices. Although, EXR is often favored in production environments where flexibility and efficiency in handling complex image data are crucial. If I'm wrong, someone please correct me :)

[BigAl3D]

PNG can only go up to 16bit, whereas .psd can go up to 32bit. Like others have said, depends on what you're rendering. Are you rendering animations? Volume effects? Smoke, fire, motion blurs? The higher-bit files take up much more space so you might not need that. A simple mask pass for example, does not need such a high bit depth. It can get confusing.

Some of the bit-depth limitation may only be noticeable in animations as dancing noise and banding that jumps around. Since you didn't post any images, maybe try the different settings and see what you think.

[tuami]

I'm definitely no expert in this area but from what I understand, both PSD and EXR's support 16bit multipass images and the difference may just come down to workflow, software or compression choices. Although, EXR is often favored in production environments where flexibility and efficiency in handling complex image data are crucial. If I'm wrong, someone please correct me :)

ok seems to be really a workflow dependent, we also use exr files for animations. but mostly we render still images and here the psd variant is simply a good choice, since we do the post-processing with photoshop.