Saving the right gamma

[pailhead]

I've been using the gamma correction for some time now, but i don't think that i ever really understood how it works.

My max is set to both input and output with 2.2 gamma.
I never changed the gamma in vray itself, i use the srgb space button in the VFB instead.

With that ticked on, i save it with gamma of 1.0 (in the save dialog) and i think it works.


But, leaving the gamma in color mapping at 1.0, leads to a lot of problems, because i'm under the impression that vray does not sample the image the way it should, because it sees it darker and withe less contrast. Am i correct?

So, this one image that i'm working on, kept being noisy no matter how high my settings were, so i decided to change the gamma in the color mapping dialog to 2.2. But now i always save the image with one too many corrections applied.

In the meanwhile i changed the max output to 1.0 in the customize dialog, but it doesnt work. I'm not using the VFB though, i've set it to save the images right away.

[rivoli]

I never changed the gamma in vray itself, i use the srgb space button in the VFB instead.

the srgb toggle applies the correction in the vray vfb only, having it on won't save any image with gamma correction applied to it. so if you save to a ldr format you won't have it corrected unless you override the gamma setting when saving it.
the srgb button it's perfectly fine when you work with hdr output though. exr for example it's a linear format, you don't need to apply any correction to it or it will be double corrected.

you're right when you say that vray can't know that you're working linearly if you leave colour mapping alone. that's what "don't affect colours" is there for, you tell vray it's working with 2,2 gamma, and it will perform the best sampling without affecting the output's colours. which, then again, it's perfectly fine if you work with full float output.
if you work with ldr output, and want to save gamma corrected images, you leave "don't affect colours" off.

[Clifton Santiago]

I see your problem maybe... your bitmap input gamma should be 2.2, but your bitmap output gamma should be 1.0. This is so Max inversely corrects the gamma of the bitmaps, so they don't get double corrected and look washed out.

[pailhead]

But i did set it to 1.0 in max preferences. What i find weird is that i also choose to override it when im saving, so instead using max's (which is 1.0) i set it to 1.0 manually. It's still washed out and needs to be adjusted afterwards.