Photoshop CS4 and EXR background problem

[instinct]

bah...dont get me started on PNG support in PS. As there is their fucked up idea of "transparency" they write complete bullshit to the alpha. As it's not "visible". Big blocks of bullshit in the RGB if you open PS png's in a serious app.

Regards,
Thorsten

[andrewjohn81]

oh...forgot to mention. My solution before had been to render with no alpha, then add the alpha as an element creating an action that put the two together once in photoshop. A pain, yes...but once you created it...not too bad.

Yeah, i love png, especially for animation, but hate them at the same time Just because of stupid PS.

[RErender]

he's probably a bright guy, but like so many other engineers he can't see the forest for the trees...

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

hes somewhere between "overbright" and smartass

[jonahhawk]

If I were him and someone from PIXAR made a complaint to me in conversation, I would be all over it and have a solution proposed to adobve straight away. I'd send a fruit basket to PIXAR with a new OpenEXR.8bi file on top.

I posted an exr that he can open in PS and AE to see what we are trying to point out...

http://www.jonahhawk.com/EXR/Alpha.exr

if you open it in PS it just looks like some teapots and spheres. But the fun part for him will be to open it in AE and Ignore Alpha!

I probably should not participate in these forums after cocktails...

[Clifton Santiago]

Told you so!

Nice one, jonahhawk! Drunken posts are always the best!

[jonahhawk]

I give up. I understand what he is saying about the format and standards, that all makes sense. It would just be nice to have the option to keep the environment background. oh well.

[rmejia]

Wow, the thread got pretty intense with the arrival of the Nuke users. So far it seems to be 100 to 1 in the case for *fixing* EXR in Photoshop. Zap Andersson presents some logical arguments, but it seems useless unless the writers of the spec inform the Adobe Engineer what to do.

[dlparisi]

Anyone know how hard it is to write an file import plugin for photoshop? Not on the level of ProEXR, just something that sends the alpha into separate channel. It can't be that hard and but with amount of people complaining about it I would think that someone would have done it by now.

[rmejia]

There would still be the problem that Photoshop doesn't read additional channels or layers in the EXR file, so anything other than the Alpha would probably require something at the level of ProEXR

[jonahhawk]

damn. that guy is so stubborn. It's nice to have some backup from the Nuke crowd.

[RErender]

There would still be the problem that Photoshop doesn't read additional channels or layers in the EXR file, so anything other than the Alpha would probably require something at the level of ProEXR

Heh, yeah somebody should ask about his incomplete implementation of the spec.

[Clifton Santiago]

I've done some research into the workarounds, and here are some notes:

1) proEXR (ProEXR.8bi): Once you enable the import option (holding 'alt' while the EXR opens, then enabling the dialog to open every time in the future), tell it not to make the background transparent, and instead write the alpha to a layer. It also writes any render elements channels into layers. I would prefer it write the alpha to a channel rather than layer, which adds a step ot the workflow, but no big deal. It does not work in PS CS4 64-bit however.

2) ILM plugin (EXRFormat.8bi): Appears to work as the CS2 import, but adds the additional options for exposure and gamma correction before importing. Curiously though, the file it opens is only 16-bit. It also does not work in PS CS4 64-bit.

3) Keeping a version of CS3 extended, with the CS2 importer (openEXR.8bi): This is the best option. Just open and save as a 32-bit PSD file, and then open in CS4.

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

did not know there was a 64 bit CS4...strange no shop gives this option

[rmejia]

Heh, yeah somebody should ask about his incomplete implementation of the spec.

Well it seems everybody finally joined the party. Florian Kainz, who had commented before now indicates the he actually is the original author of OpenEXR (dont know if Cox was aware of this when he responded to him), and agrees with Master Zap's math (which Cox said was wrong) and end's with:

"Frankly, I don't understand why OpenEXR is "the wrong file format for what [some Photoshop users] are trying to do." Plenty of other applications let users do what they want to do. Personally, I'd say this is strong evidence that the file format isn't really the culprit, but Chris, I'm sure you'll find a way to refute that."

So maybe the Adobe guy was actually a little of in his personal interpretation of the spec...

Maybe Zap sums it up best with:
"Somehow the quote "I reject your reality and substitute my own" comes to mind here. "

Edit:
Well I emailed the OpenEXR project to see what their take on this is, if they are kind enough to reply.
http://www.openexr.com/mailinglist.html