When exiting FDRTools the projects with all relevant project details are saved automatically. When starting FDRTools again the projects are also loaded automatically again.
The results from processing a scene, namely HDR image and tone mapped image - are saved explicitly. This is done from within the project editor. Saving is started by pressing the "Save" button in the task bar or by choosing the menu entry Images -> Save as...
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| Saving a result in the project editor | ||
FDRTools can save HDR images and tone mapped images. By choosing one of the Navigator window tabs "HDRI Image Inspector" or "Tone Mapped Image" you decide which type will be saved. The following figure shows the Navigator with active "Tone Mapped Image" tab. Accordingly the tone mapped image will be saved in a LDR (low dynamic range) file format.
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| A tone mapped image in the Navigator | ||
A HDR image is an attempt to reconstruct the intensities of the real scene like our eye would recognize them. An (optimal) HDR image therefore comprises the full dynamic range of a scene in uncompressed form. In general a HDR image can not be saved lossless in a 8-bit data format. Lossless storage in general requires a floating point data format. FDRTools supports the floating point formats OpenEXR, RGBE and TIFF FP (floating point). Besides 32-bit and 16-bit formats are supported also.
We recommend the OpenEXR data format for the saving of HDR images.
The following figure shows the file choosing dialog that will be displayed when saving with active "HDR Image Inspector" tab in the Navigator window.
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| Choosing the HDR file format RGBE | ||
In addition the following figure shows the dialog that you will see after pressing the "Save" button in the file choosing dialog. In the example the OpenEXR format was chosen.
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| Saving a file in OpenEXR format | ||
Within the dialog you can choose - depending on the data format - one of the available compression methods.
You can also specify an external application that shall be used for further editing of the image. The external application is started and the image handed over to it automatically. For HDR images external editing is useful only if the external application can handle floating point images.
Tone mapping compresses the dynamic range of a scene in a way that the resulting image can be saved in an ordinary 8-bit or 16-bit integer data format. Such formats like JPEG are denoted as LDR (low dynamic range) formats. FDRTools supports several 8-bit and 16-bit integer formats. The most important ones are TIFF 16-bit and JPEG. Because FDRTools is not designed to be a full-fledged image editor the resulting LDR images are in general further processed in an external image editing application. To this end it is recommended to save tone mapped images in a lossless data format:
We recommend the 16-bit TIFF format for the saving of tone mapped images.
The following figure shows the file choosing dialog that will be displayed when saving with active "Tone Mapped Image" tab in the Navigator window.
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| Choosing the LDR file format TIFF 16 | ||
The following figure shows the dialog that you will see after pressing the "Save" button in the file choosing dialog. In the example the 16-bit TIFF format was chosen.
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| Saving a file in TIFF format | ||
Within the dialog you can choose - depending on the data format - one of the available compression methods.
You can also specify an external application that shall be used for further editing of the image. The external application is started and the image handed over to it automatically. In this case we have chosen an application called "IrfanView" but you may of course choose any image editing software you like.