32-bit/HDR processing Filter only works in 16-bit depth or lower

[DQ_C]

Hello,

I've gone through the forum before posting this but can't find an answer.

I'm a 3D artist and work with 32-bit EXR constantly. I have a plugin, ArionFX, which is specifically made to work with 32-bit images, I use it in Photoshop all the time but in Photo, it is greyed out unless I change the image from 32-Bit/HDR to 16-bit, which obviously then forfeits the advantages of HDR workflow. I did check and was working with rasterized layers but no joy.

Since the plugin does work perfectly well, it opens, processes and applies the effects correctly but simply not available in 32-bit, is this something that you could potentially look into? Frankly it's pretty much the only plugin I ever use and just keeping me from just jumping to Photo full time.

If this is something you would be willing to take a look at, please let me know what kind of info you need from my end. Is there anything I can do to force it's availability in 32-bit?

Many thanks!
V.

[Mark Ingram]

That's interesting - we query the plugin and ask it what formats it supports (to enable or disable the menu item), perhaps there is a problem here (or the plugin doesn't support 32-bit).

[DQ_C]

Hi Mark,

Thank you for getting back to me. The plugin is very much made for 32-bit workflow, it even starts complaining that an image is LDR instead of HDR. Is there any kind of information I can give you to help with this?

Obviously not today, it's Sunday and I wouldn't want to intrude in your time off But I can confirm the plugin does work with 32-bit images in Photoshop, so if there's anything I can help with, please do let me know.

Thanks again

 

 

[DQ_C]

Hello, just checking in, has there been any progress with looking into this at all? If not, is there anything I can do to force enabling it?

Thanks!
V

[Mark Ingram]

53 minutes ago, DQ_C said:

Hello, just checking in, has there been any progress with looking into this at all? If not, is there anything I can do to force enabling it?

Thanks!
V

I've just double checked the code, if you have a 32-bit document, we will enable the menu items if the plugin has _either_ of the following properties set:

PIImageModesProperty : plugInModeRGB96

PIEnableInfoProperty : "RGB96Mode"

(3 channels of 32-bit data = 96)

If ArionFX uses another method of signalling it accepts 32-bit data, we would need to find out what that is. It may be worth contacting the ArionFX support / developers about this (their developers are free to contact me to discuss this further).

[DQ_C]

23 minutes ago, Mark Ingram said:

I've just double checked the code, if you have a 32-bit document, we will enable the menu items if the plugin has _either_ of the following properties set:

PIImageModesProperty : plugInModeRGB96

PIEnableInfoProperty : "RGB96Mode"

(3 channels of 32-bit data = 96)

If ArionFX uses another method of signalling it accepts 32-bit data, we would need to find out what that is. It may be worth contacting the ArionFX support / developers about this (their developers are free to contact me to discuss this further).

Thank you very much for providing some insight, I have sent an email to their support team, they're quite good about it so I am really hoping they will be able to help.

Would be a bit strange not to since it benefits everyone involved - Photo expands compatibility, they have a wider market to address and I will be able to finally and permanently uninstall PS :))

Thanks again, I'll keep you posted when I find out more from them.

[Mark Ingram]

2 minutes ago, DQ_C said:

Thank you very much for providing some insight, I have sent an email to their support team, they're quite good about it so I am really hoping they will be able to help.

Would be a bit strange not to since it benefits everyone involved - Photo expands compatibility, they have a wider market to address and I will be able to finally and permanently uninstall PS :))

Thanks again, I'll keep you posted when I find out more from them.

Great stuff, thanks @DQ_C. If they get back to you, feel free to point them at this thread. Also, we're always interested in speaking to users who work in 32-Bit, so would be great to know a bit more about your workflow. Are you using the HDR mode in the 32-bit Preview panel too?

 

[DQ_C]

Sadly, my monitor does not support HDR so I can't use that particular feature yet, I am looking to change to a proper HDR10 one but they're expensive. The proper ones, not gaming half-assed HDR monitors. I also don't put much accent on HDR workflow because it has a ridiculously limited audience, so it's far from a priority right now.

However you have something that is just insanely useful for me: OCIO Display Transforms. I can sync up lookdev between Blender or Maya and Photo, that really is crazy useful for me. I think there's a way to do that in PS too but I don't recall ever using it or it wasn't very obvious how to do it.

I prefer working in 32-bit EXR as much as possible, so for compositing I use PS and EXR-IO to load a multi-layer EXR, AP for editing because it's easier, faster and can tweak multiple layers at once, then move back to PS with a flattened 32-bit EXR for ArionFX which is essentially Camera Raw for 32-bit but focused on CGI instead of photography, and this is usually my last step in the process. A bit of a faff to constantly switch between apps but it is what it is.

I found working with multi-layer EXR very hit-or-miss but in Photoshop there is an extremely useful plugin called Exr-IO which is free, sadly isn't detected by Affinity Photo but what it does is it loads multi-layer EXR and Cryptomatte groups for you, those are extremely useful for compositing. If there's any plugin or functionality I recommend integrating for 32-bit workflows, it's Multi-layer EXR and Cryptomatte support, these are basically essential for my workflow. Multi-layer EXR can always be saved as individual files for each pass and then loaded up in a bunch, which is fine, just less convenient. Cryptomatte is a bit trickier though but still manageable, at least for my requirements.

Other times I've had to re-composite lighting, so that means working with premultiplied Alpha 32bit EXRs and composite those on top.

Another thing I occasionally do is edit HDRIs and colour-tone them at multiple EVs to get a nicer result than in-camera balance. Even with a proper grey card and MacBeth chart, it still sometimes warrant some tweaking.

I hope this helps a bit, It really depends, I have a relatively straight-forward workflow, it's been very reliable in Affinity Photo but if there's anything specific you'd like me to test for you in 32-bit workflow, please do let me know.

[James Ritson]

22 hours ago, DQ_C said:

Sadly, my monitor does not support HDR so I can't use that particular feature yet, I am looking to change to a proper HDR10 one but they're expensive. The proper ones, not gaming half-assed HDR monitors. I also don't put much accent on HDR workflow because it has a ridiculously limited audience, so it's far from a priority right now.

However you have something that is just insanely useful for me: OCIO Display Transforms. I can sync up lookdev between Blender or Maya and Photo, that really is crazy useful for me. I think there's a way to do that in PS too but I don't recall ever using it or it wasn't very obvious how to do it.

I prefer working in 32-bit EXR as much as possible, so for compositing I use PS and EXR-IO to load a multi-layer EXR, AP for editing because it's easier, faster and can tweak multiple layers at once, then move back to PS with a flattened 32-bit EXR for ArionFX which is essentially Camera Raw for 32-bit but focused on CGI instead of photography, and this is usually my last step in the process. A bit of a faff to constantly switch between apps but it is what it is.

I found working with multi-layer EXR very hit-or-miss but in Photoshop there is an extremely useful plugin called Exr-IO which is free, sadly isn't detected by Affinity Photo but what it does is it loads multi-layer EXR and Cryptomatte groups for you, those are extremely useful for compositing. If there's any plugin or functionality I recommend integrating for 32-bit workflows, it's Multi-layer EXR and Cryptomatte support, these are basically essential for my workflow. Multi-layer EXR can always be saved as individual files for each pass and then loaded up in a bunch, which is fine, just less convenient. Cryptomatte is a bit trickier though but still manageable, at least for my requirements.

Other times I've had to re-composite lighting, so that means working with premultiplied Alpha 32bit EXRs and composite those on top.

Another thing I occasionally do is edit HDRIs and colour-tone them at multiple EVs to get a nicer result than in-camera balance. Even with a proper grey card and MacBeth chart, it still sometimes warrant some tweaking.

I hope this helps a bit, It really depends, I have a relatively straight-forward workflow, it's been very reliable in Affinity Photo but if there's anything specific you'd like me to test for you in 32-bit workflow, please do let me know.

Hi @DQ_C, just chipping in as I'm a big 3D enthusiast and I do a lot of supplemental work around retouching workflows with Photo. Having native multichannel EXR support in Photo is really useful, but I agree that proper Cryptomatte support would be great too.

ArionFX sounds interesting—I always find working with tones more difficult in 32-bit because of linear compositing. I developed a couple of techniques to help with this, such as using live Procedural Texture filters to non-destructively transform to non-linear, do some tonal work (e.g. brush work with blend modes, adjustment layers), then transform back to linear.

The other thing I did was develop a set of macros to recreate the Filmic transforms without any OCIO dependencies, so you can non-destructively apply the log transform and whichever look you want. Because the Filmic transforms take the document colour values into bounded space, you can then use all blend modes and adjustment layers without worrying about creating negative values. Glow and Reflect in particular do not play nicely with unbounded values.

Hopefully that helps a lot of Blender artists out because Photo's OCIO view transform (32-bit preview panel) causes a lot of confusion—it's not designed for exporting straight from Photo to gamma corrected formats. For that, you need to be using ICC Display Transform with OCIO adjustment layers (and LUTs) to apply the transforms.

Blender's OCIO configuration causes an issue with Photo because it specifies "None" as a device transform—which Photo defaults to 😑 so instead of at least seeing a gamma corrected sRGB transform, you just see linear unmanaged values when opening an EXR with that configuration active. Many users will set up OCIO, never realise this (or the fact that there's a 32-bit preview panel to configure it) and then get a nasty surprise when they finally export their work to 8-bit or 16-bit formats.

Anyway, I tend to use those Filmic macros for pretty much any tone mapping now! (3D or just general HDR photography). Sometimes I'll just do the Log transform to compress the tonal range and then use adjustment layers until I get a decent look.

Bloom/diffuse glow I tend to achieve a couple of different ways: if I have a Bloom layer (e.g. as a pass from Eevee) I'll composite that above the composite render layer with an Add blend mode, then clip an Exposure adjustment into it and tweak until I get the right look. Alternatively, I'll use a live Gaussian Blur filter with an Overlay blend mode, then take advantage of Blend Ranges (parametric tonal blending, the cog icon next to the blend mode dropdown) to blend the effect out of the shadow tones so it doesn't overpower and darken the entire scene.

That despeckling feature from ArionFX looks really useful actually—do you know if it tackles path tracing noise? I do a lot of volumetric lighting in Blender and whilst the composite render pass is denoised, I'll sometimes use the render passes to enhance areas—e.g. transparency passes for foliage, or the volume passes to add atmosphere/mist—and they're typically very noisy unless you render with a huge amount of samples. Sometimes that's nice as it lends a bit of texture to the scene—sometimes not!

Anyway, sorry for the ramble, just wanted to share a few ideas etc. I'm always keen to learn how 3D artists are using Photo in their workflows, and I'm certainly happy to help address any issues or suggest techniques.

P.S. I notice you mentioned premultiplied alpha—just wanted to mention in case you hadn't seen them, but there are a couple of things to help with this. Preferences>Colour has an option to associate alpha channels with the RGB information, which is premultiplication, and then on the Filters>Colour menu you've got options to multiply and divide alpha as well.

[DQ_C]

@Mark Ingram I've contacted Affinity and they got back to me with the PiPL file for you to use, how can I send it over to you?

Chema Guerra (lead dev) has also been very forthcoming and said he can help you directly if needed as well.

Edited September 3, 2020 by DQ_C
accidental early send

[Chris B]

Hey DQ_C,

Could you kindly ask Chema Guerra to fire an email over to affinity@serif.com and mark the email subject as 'For the attention of Mark Ingram'. Support can then pass that to Mark and it saves you liasing between us both. It's probably better for us to speak directly  

Thanks so much! 

[DQ_C]

On 9/10/2020 at 11:07 AM, Chris B said:

Hey DQ_C,

Could you kindly ask Chema Guerra to fire an email over to affinity@serif.com and mark the email subject as 'For the attention of Mark Ingram'. Support can then pass that to Mark and it saves you liasing between us both. It's probably better for us to speak directly  

Thanks so much! 

So much for receiving post notifications, I missed this completely! Yes of course, I will forward the contact and hopefully you can communicate towards a resolution, would be amazing.

I have also attached the snipped of code I was pointed to by the dev with regards to 32-bit compatibility:

    "MIB8", /* '8BIM' */
    "lbne", /* 'enbl' EnableInfoProperty */
    0L, /* Index */
       96L, /* Length */
    "in (PSHOP_ImageMode, RGBMode, RGB48Mode, CMYKMode, CMYK64Mode, LabMode, Lab48Mode, RGB96Mode)\0\0\0",

Hopefully that will give you a lead while the dev gets in touch with you.

Kind regards,
Valentin

[Chris B]

Thank you  

[DQ_C]

Hi guys, was wondering if there's been any progress on getting this plugin to register as 32-bit? I see it's still disabled in 1.9.0 and I thought everything was provided to help enable it. Any chance this will ever be available?

Many thanks!