Why I never render PNG

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[@robinsquares]

A few amendments to the video. Thanks commenters for pointing this out. 1. The PNG/EXR difference comparison does not show only compression. It shows every difference between the two. 2. Often, TIFF is the preferred deliverable for print. 3. Cryptomattes ought not be lossy. Use ZIP 32-bit. 4. Bit-depth doesn't only double the amount of data; it does so for each channel. So an RGB image with double bit depth increases six-fold in precision, while only doubling in data. Good trade-off. 5. DWAA doesn't store 32-bit information, which is why the sizes are the same in the chart. (Unless the passes are named in a specific way.) 6. EXR doesn't bake in the tone-mapping. If you need that, TIFF is a good alternative to PNG.

[@graphikeye]

When you say EXR doesn't bake the tone-mapping are you referring to the color transform? I don't have an AGX color transform option in Krita, so baking that in to png is the only way

[@Manachrome]

​ @graphikeye You can use TIFF too, as it bakes transforms and its 32bit. If You still wanna use EXR, You can use build-in Krita's OpenColorIO library and set path for Blender LUTs configs, it will let You use the same configs, but only for View transform(AgX/Filmic), not Look. For more info check out Krita docs -- Color Managed Workflow part, they mention Blender interaction here.

[@stephen-boddy]

#4 is just... wrong! 8 bit depth = 8(r) + 8(g) + 8(b) = 24 bpp (bits per pixel) 16 bit depth = 16(r) + 16(g) + 16(b) = 48 bpp 32 bit depth = 32(r) + 32(g) + 32(b) = 96 bpp Doubling the bit depth still only doubles the data.

[@robinsquares]

@@stephen-boddy Shit, you're right. What I meant is that it increases the precision six-fold. Thanks for pointing it out. There's a lot of places to stumble on this topic.

[@utrax3d]

My only problem with EXR is that there's no accurate color configuration for it in Premiere Pro, especially for Agx. Unless there's one that i don't know of. Would love if you could share your knowledge on this.

[@GDelforge]

I think the comparison at 5:00 is a bit misleading. PNG is lossless format so it should show the exact same pixel values if you're encoding the same data. The difference there is that EXR can store floating point values where PNG only stores integer values regardless of the bit depth hence the massive difference in the sky and highlights. This makes sense in the context of rendering but there are scenarios where you don't need the data to be HDR (when creating textures typically) it would be interesting to compare how EXR and PNG compare in that scenario

[@robinsquares]

Honestly, you're right on the money. It was a bit of an unfair comparison in a few ways, and I wish in hindsight that I'd shown a bit more nuance. As you say, the argument doesn't necessarily hold regarding textures. Thanks for the thoughtful comment.

[@ronihalabi]

@@robinsquaresW for hindsight

[@kzone272]

When you dragged that PNG in it was quite visibly darker. That looked like it was in the wrong color space to me.

[@zoned7609]

​@@kzone272 that's a common display error with PNG when shown in things like a browser but I find it you open it with photopea it displays correctly, as it does when loaded into a project as an asset

[@edenem]

@@kzone272I believe that's simply due to the display transform, like how rec709 is gamma 2.2 and srgb is gamma 2.4, the EXR is also a "HDR" image, so most applications will choose to display it in HDR if your monitor supports it, I may be wrong though

[@ErikMKeller]

Great explanation! But, regarding deliverables, one should always talk to the client, or in my case, check with the printer first. The printer told me that he prefers 16 bit TIFFs for best quality. The test prints for my upcoming exhibition are looking gorgeous, btw. 😎

[@robinsquares]

Oh, absolutely. Honestly, I just forgot to mention print. It's such a small part of my work these days. I'll pin your comment.

[@jhalanddesign]

Save it as tiff at the end. Rendering tiffs will just fill your drive.

[@ErikMKeller]

@@jhalanddesign I usually go EXR and export what I need in post.

[@pikachufan25]

@@robinsquaresWheres the Pin LUL

[@TheArtofKAS]

I was thinking something similar with TIFFs. I switched over a few months ago and I've noticed a nice quality bump with some of my renders since.

[@georg240p]

0:55 is misleading. Bit depth refers to the precision with which the SAME image/video is stored. Storing values beyond "white" has nothing to do with the number of bits. You can do that in 8 bits or any number of bits. Also, saying that 8, 16 and 32 bits "double" the amount of data is strange since we are talking about precision. A 16bit PNG has 256 times more possible values per channel than 8bit. It's not just 2x as precise. This explains much better why 16bit is fine in almost all cases - and why some industries work with 10 or 12 bits - because 16 or 32 bit is unnecessarily precise. 3:20 He confuses HDR with lossless. PNG is lossless meaning an encoded image can be decoded into the exact same data. He actually means HDR again (storing values beyond white). But PNGs are also often used for that. 5:00 For whatever reason he is comparing a HDR file with a non-HDR file. Even if he thinks these files store the same data, the comparison doesn't make sense since two lossless files with the same precision obviously should contain identical pixel values - assuming you encode and decode the data correctly. Strange "proofs".

[@x0men0x]

you are awesome

[@sebastiengorecki4254]

So is that what he says completely wrong, or are his arguments still valid?

[@DePrimal]

​@@sebastiengorecki4254 im wondering the same

[@CaptainWobblyPeg]

I find this comment more valid than the entire video!

[@arsenii_yavorskyi]

​@@sebastiengorecki4254 I would lean towards "wrong".

[@jgrover110]

Your comparison between the EXR and PNG isn't showing the difference in compression quality. PNG exports with SDR tonemapping, whereas EXR export are linear unclipped HDR data. This means you will see a big difference in the brighter areas, which are squashed down when doing SDR tonemapping. You should have exported the PNG with linear tonemapping and clipped the EXR to a max of 1.0 to get a perfect comparison.

[@robinsquares]

You're absolutely right. That would've been a more fair comparison. But the HDR/SDR difference is one that I feel is relevant and that I wanted to show. But you're right; it definitely doesn't show compression alone. I wouldn't say that breaks the core argument though.

[@SKIENTIA]

Linearly encoded PNG is still integer and "SDR". Unusable regardless of the encoding, not to mention its inapt "alpha" encoding.

[@L7vanmatre]

As a consumer of a lot of online renders, I've learned that some image sharing websites will do extra compression of JPGs. That's why people "accuse" JPG of being low quality, because like it or not, a lot of places will take the opportunity to compress it "a little bit", which when the image is reshared, websites will compress it "a little bit" again. That's why terms like "Needs more JPEG" exists. Trying to do the same thing with PNG would only make the PNG load slower, but no quality reduction (though nowadays some sites seem to convert to JPG anyway). Additionally, I have one friend who does 2D art and was told to render in JPG "due to its lower quality" to try to sell the "full, proper quality" elsewhere like a patron subscription service. It's much harder to deliver a low-quality PNG than a JPG.

[@charlesdexterward4253]

Very much appriciate your effort. The whole series is a must See and very well done.

[@notanyone5027]

the video that i needed years ago, but i'm glad it's here now great work!

[@SalasEmsa]

Absolutely amazing video, great source for the video, and just a great explanation!

[@z-beeblebrox]

Learning about DWAA EXRs a few years ago blew my mind. Why this didn't become the gold standard for decently compressed high quality outputs IMMEDIATELY is just mind boggling to me. We've had this format for so long and it's been practically ignored for like half its existence.

[@savageopress1753]

Amazingly well laid out, thank you. I have been using .png since my photography days, so this is a game changer for me!

[@gabrielbeaudin3546]

The reason jpeg is smaller is because you loose a lot of information about the Hue even if your setting is acceptable for your eyes that are better at detecting contrasts. If you do professional work please use png as it correctly stores the result of your render, jpeg does not and it would show as soon as you start doing color corections. For your delivery still use png as it's the most accurate output you can give too. If you don't know if you need lossless, you do. Always. As for the test shown with the difference layer on a png, what it was is the color space change. If someone needs a smaller size he can always convert the images. If the goal is to convert the images to video at some point you would have double compression on jpg. Stick to 16bit png for work and delivering with 8bit png is fine.

[@bsko3D]

Thank you for the explanation❤

[@nkanyisoinnocentkhwane3752]

That was incredibly informative 😮

[@playbyan1453]

Watched your other videos, I really love how you explain things and very easy to understand.

[@stache_obj]

amazing video as always

[@tanishq6731]

It's hard to find channels that provide actual information these days. I get why clickbait-y titles are needed but most of the popular Blender youtubers are just pumping videos filled with memes that give little to no info about the topic they are supposed to be on. So it was refreshing to see a video that provides knowledge. Great video!

[@advladart]

Amazing video exactly what i needed for an upcoming project :)))

[@mrlightwriter]

I've learned a few things... Great episode!

[@MathiasZamecki]

Great series appreciate it learn a lot :)

[@bruninhohenrri]

That's basically a entire lesson on rendering. Nice video !

[@CGPython]

Fantastic work ❤

[@Scio_]

I find it very amusing that the slide about bit-depth had the gradient all stepped to bits both literal and figurative 😂

Fantastic vid. Ive always used png, now i know better. Greetings from Ecuador, you've earned a sub!

[@RFVisionary]

👍🏻 Great! Informative! And all in a nutshell.

[@davidbell6101]

Thank you very much!

[@mnohassi]

Wow that was amazing!! Seems like small information but huge for the quality and space!! Thank you man, you saved my life!!

[@baril3d]

What a great video!

[@pZq_]

excellent! 🧡

[@twanoligschlaeger]

very interesting, thank you!

[@stedbenj]

Thank you sir!!!

[@riccardofasoli5726]

DUDE! i have 10 years of blender experience so i didn't learn anything new (except that win+ctrl+shift+B which blew my mind lol), but i still watched every video in this series because the explanation quality was SO high and enjoyable. i'll pass the link to this playlist to all of my students! thanks for you hard work, the community is getting so filled by literally noobs teaching everybody how to do stuff that people like you are a much needed breath of fresh hair!

[@robinsquares]

Thank you so much. Comments like this make my day.

[@sitakobudo4333]

The bg music is so soothing 😌

[@BCMSi]

Awesome series man!

[@A.R.C.Productions]

Great Video!!

[@ettiSurreal]

Oh if only modern formats like .webp and .jxl were more adopted.

[@1ucasvb]

Good video, but comparing zoomed in JPEG and PNG should have been done without interpolation, as that defeats the purpose of the comparison.

[@grenoblica]

Great series, and this is the best episode!

[@lucyfaire1980]

I used to hate and avoid exr files because of the ridiculously large file size. Thanks so much for this tip!

[@joeypouladi]

This video is incredible and is going to save me so much space it isn't even funny. 🙏🙏🙏

[@peagace]

What a great video. Literally, i've been using png for the last 8 years without knowing the real difference. Thanks.

[@m.sharif_3d]

Short, straight to the point, no beating around the bush. Just what I needed for a video like this to improve my renders, thank you!

[@SpencerMagnusson]

Thanks for sharing! I didn't know about the difference between JPG and PNG regarding (with/without) transparency. I did learn about DWAA codec, but probably didn't need 32 bit for my short 😅 good visual charts too.

[@MuffinMachine]

Came for the knowledge and stayed for the soothing background music. Thanks for sharing this with us!

[@guilhermecarvalhodarosa]

Awesome

[@giorgifolio]

thank you

[@Zentron]

Which would be best to use as an overlay in video editing? I used to use Tiff image files, but it had its problems with giving me a white edge, so I switched over to PNG (ping) images and the white edge issue was gone!

[@darren184]

Appreciate your work! One more thing, Do you think there's no such differences on saving time? I often do render animations which get me to render over 2,000-3,000 frames. Heard TIFF and EXR format save faster than PNG though. What's your thought about saving time for EXR (DWAA, 16 bit)?

[@robinsquares]

You're right, EXR both saves and loads faster than PNG does. Compressing and de-compressing a file takes time, and EXR does that much more cleverly. Although bigger files can sometimes load slowly if they're on a slow hard-drive. I did some quick preliminary tests on loading time (which I assume are comparable to saving time,) and it seemed to depend much more on bit-depth than file type. Which makes sense. Can't tell you much more than that.

[@user-tp3eq8zf1z]

Amazing

[@MasqueArt]

Damn dude, insta subscribe, howcome I haven't found you sooner. Known about this, been using EXR. I am only a hobby artist. But your explanation is clear and your video was so pleasant to watch I had to stop on 2 minute mark and make sure I subscribe.

[@Marcelmikael]

Awesome stuff, please, does this apply when rendering an image sequence for a video? I've always used png, and most times the "alpha" is not necessary. Can i use jpeg at 90% quality instead?

[@slavastokolos2891]

Thank you

[@wedding_photography]

You're wrong about browsers only supporting 8-bit. You can use AVIF to display 10-bit HDR images, it's supported by most browsers. Also Safari supports HEIC.

[@charityworks.studio]

How insightful and informative! Thank you for making this video! Will look at the whole series!

[@priyanshurijhwani]

In the comparison i think we compared 32 bit EXR file with 16 bit PNG file. This can be a reason for the difference in quality. Btw great video, learned something new.

[@AfesoFranklyn]

One issue I've experienced with using exr is that when it's saved in blender, it usually doesn't look like the png file when loaded into a photo manipulation program like krita. This is usually cos of the color management (AGX or Filmic)

[@robertleighton8525]

I was Blown away!

[@hassan4gd622]

Thanks

[@erankartist]

i like this very much

[@santiagoverdugo318]

THANK YOUUUUUUUUUU!

[@noiJadisCailleach]

Thank you! I'll use this as a guide from now on. All this time my only rule is that: There's no point using .PNG if it's not indexed.

[@scottburgess2263]

Cool to see we don't need TIFF files anymore.

[@jayzn1931]

As a photographer I have found first hand that there are images and situations that can’t be properly displayed using a 100% quality jpeg. It is simply not possible in extreme situations to have smooth gradients. So if you are working in a colorful project I recommend you to test it in some situations. Also, a lot of screens nowadays are 10 bit. All HDR screens are 10 bit, they have to be. But if your image is not in HDR (does blender even support that?) it might not matter. 10 bit would probably solve the Joe’s banding problem, but jpegs don’t support 10 bit. EDIT: As others pointed out in other comments, EXR seems to support HDR andin this video HDR seems to be confused with lossless.

[@gatocuriso]

Excelent

[@klausgartenstiel4586]

most sophisticated clickbait title ever 👑

[@raspas99]

Thank you! It was informative and of course fun. That comparison between PNG and DXR was a bit unfair since you know that gamma curve is probably different or something.. but again, thanks!

[@sawthis00]

Thank you for the video. Could you make a video explaining the mechanism of packing various images into one exr file? Please.

[@robinsquares]

If you look real close, the whole process is shown in the video. Compositor file output.

[@dinoscheidt]

PNG is a container format. The video is like saying “never use a square fridge” … has little to do with the food inside.

[@flame-9142]

thank you. I have been saying this for years, but because png is significantly slower to write than other formats due to the compression. So much so that I have had cases where it took longer to write the frame to disk, than to render it in the first place.

[@DziadZabol]

What color space are you using (agx, standard etc.) on render, and how do you set it up in davinci? There are tons of tuts about color managment but they all cover ACES

[@robinsquares]

For everything photoreal, I work in AgX with a display transform that suits the scene (I typically leave it at the middle contrast level,) and export in AgX log. In Resolve, I've converted the AgX OCIO to LUTs, which I haven't had any accuracy problems with. Sometimes, I use the AgX OCIO directly in Fusion. But the charts in my videos are typically sRGB, standard tonemapping, to retain my brand colors.

[@DziadZabol]

@@robinsquares Thanks for reply. You may consider making tutorial on that topic, that would be great.

[@jose9758]

Great video, easy to follow, and translates well across a huge range of software! Have a subscribe kind sir

[@AFoulXzeno]

I saved a 16k normal map from one of my projects in PNG RGBA 0% compress and EXR DWAA 16bit and the DWAA version ended up being 11MB LARGER than the PNG.

[@j7ndominica051]

JPEG can't do very slow gradients because there is quantization in YCbCr domain, which is only removed with the new JpegLi codec which no software has. You can see a similar effect in the video encoding on the chart scenes here. They show a grey ellipse with blocky borders instead of a smooth blob. Lossless EXR compression is better/faster than PNG. But it's a very complex format and only pro tools support it fully.

[@BoxPossum96]

Holy shit. Useful content ahoy

[@luciox2919]

what about the other exr compression files? pxr24? dwab? piz? and do they affect the depth?... also nice video , i always render png and dwaa. Edit: i mean by depth as z depth

[@robinsquares]

There are some small differences between them all, but they all get the job done. I didn't want to get into the details in the video, but here's a summary. PIZ is best for grainy images PXR24 changes the bit depth, which can really help with size, but is slightly more confusing to work with B44 isn't adaptive, so you get more predictable image sizes There's little to prefer DWAA over DWAB. They compress differently sized blocks of data. They should all handle Z-depth the same.

[@luciox2919]

@@robinsquaresthanks.. i always wanted to know the difference

[@timkreutzkamp8519]

Hey, thanks for the In-Depth Video. Love to see more professional knowledge getting to the Blender Community. You could have added that there is a difference between 16 bit EXR and 16 Bit png. 16bit exr is "half" float meaning that you get 32bit float values where negative colors (lower that 0) or overbrights (brighter that 255 or 1) while having half the precision. 16 bit png and tiffs only have integers values so you dont have negatives or overbrights. In regards to png vs jpg, png gets smaller file sizes whith the amount of color represent. so a 10k image with only black and white and no greys should be much smaller than the corresponding jpg. Kepp up the good work :)

[@mariokart64n]

non-HDR formats typically use a color space that applies a gamma function to squeeze more important color data along the bit depth. Thats why you see the colors change doing a diff check on the EXR vs PNG (lossless). DDWA and JPG compressions are very destructive even if you don't think you can see anything change. Also PNG uses zip compression per scan line, so at a point it doesn't matter how high you crank the quality slider, the compression will have a diminishing return on size and will impact load times. I personally don't see why anyone in this day in age would not use lossless, even if your image was horribly compressed blender still unpacks that image in full in memory. maybe you save a bit of time on loading time? but use a NMVe and you'll get 7GB/s transfer speeds and be laughing when your 5GB blend file loads in one second

[@purrzival]

Hey, great video! I would really love to get some downloadable graphics i can reference later

[@robinsquares]

Thanks! Is there a way to check my channel's community posts? I've posted the flowchart there. I'll see if I can link it in the description. (edit: Here's a download for you 1drv.ms/i/s!AuLCSE-VGaTGgY0hfb0SI6w9ijT1dw?e=5gYyTh)

[@purrzival]

​@@robinsquaresthank you! It's really great seeing a channel like yours rising like it should, I hope you continue the great work!

[@YVZSTUDIOS]

Honestly, when I was working with 3ds max and vray I always exported exr 32bpc but now I'm using blender an I'm more than happy with the default filmic blender tone mapping 😄 it saves me a lot of time. Now I just save it as a PNG 16bpc, do slight color adjustments and it's done for my use case ✨

[@yoman4802]

My blending is so god damn optimized right now, you have no idea

[@PandaJerk007]

And yet your mouth is a sewer, so I don't think your 'blending' matters much at all. It is 3D art, and AI will soon destroy many of the jobs.

[@mipe7755]

Robin Squares: "Why I never render PNG" Also Robin Squares: "For deliverables I do PNG..."

[@kopfdertoten466]

Thanks, I had no idea that EXR existed but my file size is way smaller now!

[@DynoosHD]

good to know

[@Crabtorias]

Most the time i want a file that is easy to share and can be edited later. Storage is cheap so 16 bit png is usually fine. If i need hdr then i look at exr.

[@user-se6et3jn2t]

preveiw is so epic i shat my pants

[@COVET2010]

yes but what about the workflow, preview, editing, and so on. EXR boggled my head and i just switched to jpeg instead. Do you have an upcoming video on working with EXR?

[@yamananimasyon]

Thanks for the video! It’s really hard to find storage for png renders but I can’t figure out how to make EXR look the same with AGX color Blender viewport render. I send it to AE and use opencolorIO but it’s not the same with png renders no matter what I do. Can you make a video about this topic?

[@matpond]

such a good series dude!

[@jorgeluisgenova5108]

Perfect explanation, amazing editing, beautiful graphic design, congratulations and thank you, this is the perfect example of what a KZbin video should be!

[@brokenstudiotv]

This series was phenomenal, I learned so many new things and re-learned others that I had misunderstood before. Thanks for such a concise and valuable tutorials! ❤

[@thekid317]

even if you need transparency you can render in Jpeg the color channel and then the alpha channel separatly, since you'll usually only need alpha in compositing that's be fine too

[@AnimeEye1]

Can you please drop a 15 minute long tutorial on texture projection? In blender 4.0

[@XIBLEE]

I think this video is another level. Thank you man.

[@GraphicdesignforFree]

Great video! I thought that PNG was lossless however?

[@imjustday]

How can I solve the linear problem? When I import the EXR into PHOTOSHOP, several colors are modified and it becomes more saturated and bright

[@minerkey682]

seeing the comparisons between PNG and JPEG, I feel like an idiot looking at my folders of PNG sequences that take up multiple gigabytes lol

[@Thebluebananas100]

Instant subscribe

[@lpcamargo]

I like dark gradient backgrounds but you must know the atrocity KZbin compression does to it, it very distracting. Anyway, great video!

[@robinsquares]

Would it be better if it were white?

[@lpcamargo]

I guess a solid dark background would be just fine in these cases. I like dark gradients but when they are this subtle they are just banded into blobs when compressed.

[@robinsquares]

@@lpcamargo I used a solid color for all the backgrounds, so I guess that's still a problem. I've heard that you can get a better bitrate in 4K?

[@danielsmira5683]

My problem with EXR is that the export is in completely different contrast and colors than what the vieweport shows me. I understand that EXR carries a greater depth of color but honestly, I don't have the time and I'm tired of having to adjust contrast and complexly recolor every export.

[@DonC876]

Even though the visual difference between a jpeg 100% and a png is not visible, when you use that image in a video game as a texture or upload it to a social media page it will get compressed again and then the artifacts start to accumulate. For me it's always png or tga because I am a game developer and compression comes at build time, but I guess for a lot of other applications it's fine, especially if you're handling srgb color information meant to be looked at by humans. Anyway I really would like you to extend that chart with some examples of png and jpeg, compressed with pingo/pings , which is the best image compression tool in existence (afaik). I like to use it's lossless png compression for my game content and in web development, though it also offers lossy compression for both.

[@user-yu5ze7vs8w]

Pleeease, tell me what is that music playing on the background ?