Doc:2.6/Manual/Render/Render Window

Rendering and Saving Images

After you have adjusted your render settings, in regards to Quality and Format, you will need to actually render the image rendering still images is fairly simple. Rendering Animations is a bit more complex and is covered in the next sections.

To render an image from the active camera, in the Render Panel, hit the big Image button. By default the 3D view is replaced with the UV/Image Editor and the render appears

Displaying Renders

Renders now are displayed in the Image Editor. You can set the way this is displayed to several different options in the Display drop down menu:

Keep UI

The image is rendered to the Image Editor, but the UI remains the same. You will need to open the Image Editor manually to see the render result.

New Window

A new floating window opens up displaying the render

Image Editor

The 3D view is replaced with the Image Editor, showing the render

Full Screen

The Image editor replaces the UI, showing the render

For each of these options, pressing Esc will close the render view and return to the previous view.

Saving

Rendered images can be saved by clicking on the Image menu and using the save options

Display Options

When a rendered image is displayed in the Image Editor, several new menu items become available.

Slot Menu

You can save successive renders into the render buffer by selecting a new slot before rendering. If an image has been rendered to a slot, it can be viewed by selecting that slot. Empty slots appear as blank grids in the image editor. Use the shortcut J to cycle through saved renders.

Render Layer

If you are using Render Layers, use this menu to select which layer is displayed.

Render Pass

If you are using Render Passes, use this menu to select which pass is displayed.

Image Painting

This icon enables or disables Image Painting.

Display Mode

The last four buttons set how the image is displayed.

RGB

Draw image as rendered, with out alpha channel.

RGBA

Replaces transparent pixels with background checker, denoting the alpha channel.

Alpha Channel

Displays a greyscale image. White areas are opaque, Black areas have a an alpha of 0.

Z Depth

Display the depth from the camera, from Clip Start to Clip End, as specified in the Camera settings.

Curves Panel

The Curves Panel is available in the Properties Panel. You can use this to adjust the colors of the image.