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HDR at a glance
HDR
HDR raster formats became important in rendering and lighting workflows before consumer-facing HDR delivery stories matured in mainstream media formats.
PFM Raw at a glance
PFM Raw
PFM persists from the era when HDR imaging, rendering research, and tone-mapping workflows needed straightforward file carriers for floating-point image data long before mainstream consumer HDR delivery formats matured.
Format comparison
| Feature | HDR | PFM Raw |
|---|---|---|
| File type | Image | Image |
| Extensions |
|
|
| MIME type |
|
|
| Created year | 1989 | 1998 |
| Inventor | Greg Ward | PBRT / Paul Debevec community |
| Status | active | active |
| Transparency | Not supported | Not supported |
| Animation | Not supported | Not supported |
| Primary use cases |
|
|
| Layer support | Not supported | Not supported |
| Vector scaling | Not supported | Not supported |
| Camera raw data | Not supported | Not supported |
| HDR support | Supported | Supported |
| Streaming ready | Not supported | Not supported |
When to use each format
When to use HDR
- Your source file is already in HDR.
- Preserve source expectations before exporting to PFM Raw.
- HDR is commonly used in image workflows.
When to use PFM Raw
- Your target workflow expects PFM Raw.
- Improve delivery compatibility with PFM Raw.
- PFM Raw is commonly used in image workflows.
FAQs
Why convert HDR to PFM Raw?
Convert to PFM raw when HDR rendering, tone-mapping, or scientific-imaging workflows need floating-point pixel values to survive intact between tools.
It is especially useful as an intermediate format for graphics research, physically based rendering, and analytical image-processing pipelines that operate on scene-referred data.
What changes when converting HDR to PFM Raw?
This conversion changes how the format behaves in downstream tools and delivery environments.
What should I review after converting HDR to PFM Raw?
Validate output quality on representative files and confirm the target format behaves correctly in the destination workflow.