Why does my EXR look too dark or washed out?

An EXR stores light in linear values, not ready-to-show colours, and renderers often write values well over 1 (brighter than white). Viewers that just clip them show a blown-out or dark picture. Raise or lower the exposure here, or press Auto to put the middle tones at mid-grey, and try the filmic curve to bring back highlight detail.

Which highlight curve should I use?

Clip to white shows the values as they are, which suits an ordinary image saved as EXR. Soft (Reinhard) compresses bright areas smoothly. Filmic (ACES) is the curve many renderers and game engines use, with gentle contrast and rolled-off highlights, and usually looks best for renders.

Does saving as PNG keep the HDR?

No format a browser shows keeps all of it: PNG and JPG hold 0 to white. What you save is the picture as you exposed it. The 16-bit PNG keeps much finer steps, which helps when editing, but brightness beyond white is decided by the exposure and curve you chose.

Is my EXR file uploaded?

No. The file is decoded by this browser tab on your own device, and nothing is sent anywhere.

Stays on your computer How this works

Free EXR viewer: open OpenEXR images online and convert to PNG or JPG

Open an .exr render or HDR photo, set its exposure and highlight curve, and save it as PNG, JPG, WebP or a 16-bit PNG. The file is opened in your browser and is not uploaded.

Drop a .exr file here, or click to choose oneIt is opened by your browser, on this computer. Nothing is uploaded.

About the EXR viewer

OpenEXR is the image format of film effects, 3D rendering and HDR photography. Blender, Cinema 4D, Maya, Houdini, Nuke and most renderers write it, because it stores light as floating-point numbers that can go far brighter than white, so nothing is clipped. That same range is why an ordinary image viewer cannot show it: the picture has to be exposed, like a photograph, before it fits a screen.

This page decodes the EXR and lets you choose that exposure and how the highlights roll off, then saves what you see. It is free to use, with no account and no upload limit, and it runs entirely in your browser: nothing is uploaded, and while the page stays open, a feature you have already used keeps working offline.

What you can do

See an EXR render or HDR image, with its transparency, opened at a sensible exposure
Change the exposure in half stops, and choose how highlights are shown: clipped to white, softened (Reinhard) or filmic (ACES)
Save the result as PNG, JPG or WebP, or as a 16-bit PNG that keeps smooth gradients for further editing
See the channels, their precision (16-bit half or 32-bit float), the compression and the details the renderer saved, such as the software and comments
Reads scanline EXRs with no compression or RLE, ZIP, ZIPS, PIZ, PXR24, DWAA or DWAB, in RGB, RGBA or luminance (Y)

Tiled, multi-part and deep EXRs, and the B44 compressions, are not read yet; the page says so and lists what the file holds.

How to convert EXR to PNG

Drop the .exr file on the box above, or click the box and choose it.
Adjust the exposure until it looks right, and pick a highlight curve if the bright parts are blown out.
Save as PNG, JPG or WebP, or as a 16-bit PNG to edit further.

Questions

Why does my EXR look too dark or washed out?: An EXR stores light in linear values, not ready-to-show colours, and renderers often write values well over 1 (brighter than white). Viewers that just clip them show a blown-out or dark picture. Raise or lower the exposure here, or press Auto to put the middle tones at mid-grey, and try the filmic curve to bring back highlight detail.
Which highlight curve should I use?: Clip to white shows the values as they are, which suits an ordinary image saved as EXR. Soft (Reinhard) compresses bright areas smoothly. Filmic (ACES) is the curve many renderers and game engines use, with gentle contrast and rolled-off highlights, and usually looks best for renders.
Does saving as PNG keep the HDR?: No format a browser shows keeps all of it: PNG and JPG hold 0 to white. What you save is the picture as you exposed it. The 16-bit PNG keeps much finer steps, which helps when editing, but brightness beyond white is decided by the exposure and curve you chose.
Is my EXR file uploaded?: No. The file is decoded by this browser tab on your own device, and nothing is sent anywhere.

Built by John McMillan, a senior full-stack engineer. Open to remote roles: hire me.

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