EXR to PNG Converter
Turn an OpenEXR render into a PNG that any browser, chat app or slide deck can show. The float image is brought down to standard 8-bit color with its alpha channel, ready for a client preview or a portfolio.
Image Converter
or drop JPG, JPEG, JPE … files here ·
Max 95 MB per file· Up to 20 files· Deleted after 30 minutes
Files are processed on our servers and deleted after 30 minutes.
85 keeps photos visually identical to the original. Lower it only when you need a smaller file.
JPG, BMP and EPS have no transparency. Transparent pixels are filled with this color.
Hex color used behind transparent pixels, e.g. #FFFFFF.
This format holds a single image. Choose GIF or WebP output if you want to keep the animation.
A multi-size icon contains several resolutions in one file; browsers and operating systems pick the one they need.
Keep the original dimensions, or enter one side and the aspect ratio is kept.
Pixels for the side you chose above.
Percentage of the original dimensions.
sRGB is right for screens and the web. Keep the original for print workflows; grayscale discards color.
Metadata only, 0 keeps the original value. Printers and some portals read this number; it does not change pixel dimensions.
How to use this tool
- 1
Upload the .exr renders
Single-layer or multilayer EXR files from Blender, Houdini, Maya or Nuke. Up to 20 per batch, 95 MB each.
- 2
Press Convert to PNG
The main RGBA image is read, mapped from linear light to display color and written as an 8-bit PNG.
- 3
Compare with your viewer
Open the PNG next to the render window. If the look differs, the note below on view transforms explains why.
An EXR stores light as floating-point numbers; a PNG stores 256 levels per channel. Converting maps one to the other and keeps the beauty image and alpha, nothing else.
EXR to PNG for Blender and VFX renders
Industrial Light & Magic built OpenEXR for its own film pipeline and released it as open source in 2003. Its 16-bit half-float type lets a pixel be far brighter than white, which is what compositors need to add glow, change exposure or grade a shot without banding. The format is now maintained under the Academy Software Foundation, and Blender, Houdini, Maya, Nuke and After Effects all write it.
That flexibility is also why an .exr will not open in a browser, a phone gallery, Slack or Google Slides. When a client wants to see a frame, a teacher wants a still for a course submission, or ArtStation needs a portfolio image, the render has to become an ordinary picture. PNG is the usual choice: lossless, transparent where the render is transparent, and readable everywhere.
From linear float light to an 8-bit PNG
Read the beauty layer
The main RGBA image of the EXR is decoded; float values may run far above 1.0.
Map to display color
Linear light is converted to sRGB, and values beyond white are compressed or clipped.
Write 8-bit PNG
Each channel becomes 0–255, alpha included, losslessly compressed.
Which EXR channels and AOVs make it into the PNG
| from ↓ · to → | PNG | JPG |
|---|---|---|
| RGB beauty | RGB beauty to PNG: yes | RGB beauty to JPG: yes |
| Alpha | Alpha to PNG: yes | – Alpha to JPG: no |
| Depth (Z) | – Depth (Z) to PNG: no | – Depth (Z) to JPG: no |
| Normal | – Normal to PNG: no | – Normal to JPG: no |
| Cryptomatte | – Cryptomatte to PNG: no | – Cryptomatte to JPG: no |
| Extra view layers | – Extra view layers to PNG: no | – Extra view layers to JPG: no |
EXR
OpenEXR
OpenEXR is a high-dynamic-range image format developed by Industrial Light & Magic and released as open source in 2003. It stores 16-bit half-float or 32-bit float channels, so very bright highlights and deep shadows survive editing without clipping. It supports many named channels, layers and lossless or lossy compression and is standard in visual effects, compositing and 3D rendering. Files are large, and ordinary image viewers and browsers cannot display them correctly.
- Compression
- Lossy or lossless
- Transparency
- Yes
- Animation
- No
- Introduced
- 2003 · Industrial Light & Magic
PNG
Portable Network Graphics
PNG is a lossless raster format published in 1996 by the PNG Development Group and later standardised by the W3C and ISO. It keeps every pixel exactly, supports full alpha transparency and handles text, sharp edges and flat colours without artefacts. That precision makes it ideal for screenshots, logos, icons and interface graphics. The trade-off is size: photographs saved as PNG are often several times larger than the same photo as JPEG or WebP. All browsers, operating systems and editors open PNG files.
- Compression
- Lossless
- Transparency
- Yes
- Animation
- No
- Introduced
- 1996 · PNG Development Group
EXR to PNG is the last step of a 3D or VFX job: artists keep the float master for compositing and hand a PNG to clients, portfolio sites and chat apps that cannot read OpenEXR.
Keep the EXR
The PNG is a delivery copy. Once highlights are clipped to white and passes are dropped, you cannot re-grade the shot from it. Archive the EXR next to the PNG, and send a radiance HDR environment map through HDR to JPG when you need a preview of that too.
Questions about converting OpenEXR to PNG
Why does the PNG look different from Blender's render window?
Blender shows renders through a view transform, AgX by default since Blender 4.0 and Filmic before that, plus any Look and exposure you set. EXR files are saved as raw scene-linear data without that transform, so a converter outside Blender cannot know it. For an exact match, save the PNG from Blender itself.
Can a PNG hold the HDR range of an EXR?
No. An 8-bit PNG has 256 levels per channel from black to display white, while a half-float EXR can store values up to 65,504. Highlights brighter than white are squeezed or clipped, so keep the EXR as the master for any later grading.
What happens to depth, normal and Cryptomatte passes?
They are left out. A PNG holds one RGB image and an alpha channel, so only the main beauty layer is converted. To look at a depth or normal pass, write it to its own file in Blender's compositor and convert that file.
Is the transparent background of my render kept?
Yes. If the render used a transparent film, the EXR has an alpha channel and the PNG keeps it, so the object sits on a checkerboard in editors and over any page background on the web.
My multilayer EXR is larger than 95 MB. What can I do?
Re-save it from Blender or Nuke with only the combined layer, or with DWAA compression, which is lossy but far smaller than ZIP or PIZ. A single beauty layer at 1920 × 1080 is usually well under the limit.
Is PNG or JPG better for sharing a render?
PNG when the render has transparency or crisp UI-like edges, JPG when it is a full-frame image going into an email or a chat with size limits. Our comparison of JPG and PNG explains the trade-off in detail.
