Supported Formats

Image Formats

This is the list of image file formats supported internally by Blender:

High Dynamic Range Graphics

Blender's image input/output system transparently support regular 32 bits graphics (4 x 8 bits) or floating point images storing 128 bits per pixel (4 x 32 bits).

On reading High Dynamic Range Images (HDRI), even when they're for example 3 x 10 bits, the pixels are always converted internally to RGBA float values. Optionally, like while displaying the image in the UV Image editor, this then gets converted to regular 32 bits for faster display.

When an image has float colors, all imaging functions in Blender default to use that. This includes the Video Sequence Editor, texture mapping, background images, and the Compositor.

For hints how to manipulate or view HDR images, please check the Curves UI page.

Others Formats

Here's a list of other supported image formats:

BMP
DDS
SGI IRIS (old!)
PNG
JPEG
JPEG 2000
Targa
Targa Raw (uncompressed Targa)
TIFF

Movie Formats

AVI (Windows)
AVI JPEG
AVI Raw
Frame Server
H.264
MPEG
Ogg Theora
QuickTime
Xvid

Color Modes

BW, Images get saved in 8 bits grayscale (only PNG, JPEG, TGA, TIF)
RGB, Images are saved with RGB (color)
RGBA, Images are saved with RGB and Alpha data (if supported)

Color Depths

8 bit color channels
12 bit color channels
16 bit color channels
32 bit color channels

Reference

Formats

Doc:2.6/Manual/Data System/Files/Formats