P: Add Open EXR support to lightroom classic

[AJ3DVFX]

Feature Request: Add Open EXR support to lightroom classic
Could we please add open exr support to lightroom classic as an export file format.
This would be greatly appreciated in the visual effects industry, that require the .exr file format as the default image intermediate format.

Example use case
When working with multi camera scan data, either from a lightstage rig or a photogrammetry scan, we are provided with thousands of raw images to process. The target output image is usually a 16bit zip compressed .exr file to use for texture reprojection, or in compositing software for further processing.

To create the target .exr file requires multiple steps using Photoshop scripts (slow), 3rd party software, or custom compiled command line tools such as OpenImage IO. Whatever the process used, it takes valuable time away from doing the actual work its required for. It would be significantly more convenient to export a .exr file type directly from lightroom classic.

Thank you!

[johnrellis]

With your current workflow, are you exporting the raws from LR as TIFFs and then converting them to EXR?

[JtheNinja]

If you export as 32bit TIFF with HDR edits enabled, you should get a linear fp32 file. (Use the "Adobe Neutral" profile to stop LR from applying its own curve). Nuke/Fusion can ingest this directly, and it's fairly simple to convert to a half-float zip EXR from there if that's what you need. It's extra steps, but not complicated and can be done with software you probably have around anyway.

I'd rather have OpenEXR IMPORT in LR, tbh. LrC 13.x changed how 32bit TIFFs are handled on import and now they have much more limited tonemapping compared to linear DNGs. I wish there was another file format that's more widely support that had the same handling that linear DNGs get, and depth map support in LR would be nice too.

[AJ3DVFX]

Thanks for the suggestion JtheNinja!
I tested this method and it does seem work, the full range is maintained which is excellent

This is a great workaround for the moment, but I still feel having import/export exr would be a great addition.

Cheers!

[johnrellis]

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"I tested this method and it does seem work, the full range is maintained which is excellent

This is a great workaround for the moment, but I still feel having import/export exr would be a great addition."

While waiting for Adobe to implement this (which could be a very long time), you could use the Run Any Command plugin in your Export preset to use Imagemagick (or other command-line tool) to convert from TIFF to EXR:

[MikeCurtis_1138]

OMG, YES PLEASE! I'm doing timelapse workflows, and I've been doing bracketed 16 bit TIFF exports to generate EXRs in an HDR program. If I could directly export full range EXR files that would be a HUGE help. To have to step through 32 bit TIFF and then generate EXRs (such as in After Effects) is possible but time consuming and takes up a ton of disk space when I'm dealing with thousands of frames per shot.