Photoshop CC 2018 EXR Loading Freeze

Posted on by Oded Maoz Erell

Software:
Photoshop CC 2018

Iv’e encountered a problem with loading EXR files into Photoshop CC 2018.
About 50 percent of the times the software would freeze during the load operation,
It would happen on files that I have opened many times before with previous versions of the software, and also on different PC’s.

After some testing it seams that maybe the problem is with EXR files that are compressed using PIZ Wavelet compression, although I can’t be sure because I couldn’t reproduce the problem with such files created with Blender, the problem only seams to happen with files created with 3ds max.

Does it make sense that Photoshop CC 2018 would have a problem with PIZ Compressed EXR files created with 3ds max?

I don’t know, but from the tests I did at the studio this seam to be the case…

I would love to get more info or clarification on this.

Clamp Colors in Photoshop 32 bit float Color Depth

Posted on by Oded Maoz Erell

Software:
Photoshop CC 2018

Photoshop CC 32 bit float linear workflow is developing nicely but it still lack some needed basic components, and one of them is a Clamp Color Adjustment, equivalent to a node you will find in any 32 bit float HDR capable compositing software.

Clamping the colors means limiting the britest values to set values, usually 1.0 – white and 0.0 – black, so that no pixels will have higher than white or lower than black (negative) values that can create unwanted results in further operations.

* Brighter than white (super-whites) and negative colors are a feature, and part of linear 32 bit float color processing.

* If there is such an option that I didn’t find please let me know..

In order to clamp the layers colors we convert it to a Smart Object, and convert its color depth to 16Bit internally, so the individual layer gets clamped but the main document remains 32Bit float unclamped (HDR).

To clamp the colors of a layer:

  1. Convert the layer or layers to a Smart Object.
  2. Enter the Smart Object for editing.
  3. From the Image > Mode  menu, choose 16Bits/Channel,
    And in the Conversion dialog that opens choose ‘Don’t Merge’, or choose Merge and then in the HDR Toning dialog choose Exposure And Gamma mode to keep the image unchanged.
    The conversion to 16Bit color depth without Merging or Merging using default Exposure and Gamma mode will clamp the colors.
  4. Save the Smart Object.
  5. Return to the main document, the layers colors are now clamped.