Tiff format not supported

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Allen Hemberger

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Mar 24, 2021, 10:00:32 PM3/24/21
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Hello;

I'm running into an error message in PTGui Pro for which I can't find any clues how to troubleshoot. 

I have a set of images, shot with a Canon 5d. They are CR2 RAW images, and I'm using dcraw to convert them to 16-bit tiffs. I would like to then convert these to 32-bit tiffs before importing them into PTGui. 

I can use photoshop to perform this bit depth operation, but I would prefer to achieve this conversion on the command-line (in a Terminal; I'm on a mac). I find that imageMagick seems to allow me to do this easily enough:

> convert myFile.tif -depth 32 myNewFile.tif

When I try to load it in PTGui, however, I get a popup error that reads "Tiff Format Not Supported":

Screen Shot 2021-03-24 at 8.58.21 PM.png

I can't see to trigger problems with this file anywhere else...Preview and Photoshop are both able to open the image with no problems. 

Might anyone have advice as to what I may be doing wrong here (or, better yet, a suggestion as to how I may perform this bit depth change in a way that makes PTGui happy?)

Many thanks!

PTGui Support

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Mar 25, 2021, 2:32:11 AM3/25/21
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Hi Allen,

TIFF is a container format for many kinds of image data. Not all
variants are supported by PTGui.

Could you post such an image so I can take a look? A small sample would do.

Kind regards,

Joost Nieuwenhuijse
www.ptgui.com

On 25/03/2021 03:00, Allen Hemberger wrote:
> Hello;
>
> I'm running into an error message in PTGui Pro for which I can't find
> any clues how to troubleshoot.
>
> I have a set of images, shot with a Canon 5d. They are CR2 RAW images,
> and I'm using dcraw to convert them to 16-bit tiffs. I would like to
> then convert these to 32-bit tiffs before importing them into PTGui.
>
> I can use photoshop to perform this bit depth operation, but I would
> prefer to achieve this conversion on the command-line (in a Terminal;
> I'm on a mac). I find that imageMagick seems to allow me to do this
> easily enough:
>
> > convert myFile.tif -depth 32 myNewFile.tif
>
> When I try to load it in PTGui, however, I get a popup error that reads
> "Tiff Format Not Supported":
>
> Screen Shot 2021-03-24 at 8.58.21 PM.png
>
> I can't see to trigger problems with this file anywhere else...Preview
> and Photoshop are both able to open the image with no problems.
>
> Might anyone have advice as to what I may be doing wrong here (or,
> better yet, a suggestion as to how I may perform this bit depth change
> in a way that makes PTGui happy?)
>
> Many thanks!
>
> --
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Erik Krause

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Mar 25, 2021, 7:09:58 AM3/25/21
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Am 25.03.21 um 03:00 schrieb Allen Hemberger:

> They are CR2 RAW images, and
> I'm using dcraw to convert them to 16-bit tiffs. I would like to then
> convert these to 32-bit tiffs before importing them into PTGui.

May I ask why you would want to do that? Just because PTGui can do this
conversion for you as well...

And dcraw provides only very limited raw conversion. But again I don't
know what you're after.

--
Erik Krause

Allen Hemberger

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Mar 25, 2021, 12:21:08 PM3/25/21
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Hi @Joost, surely, here is some test data:

My original RAW image file:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3xhsnflteqfr28c/_LN_2760.CR2?dl=0

The above image converted to a 16bit uint tiff using dcraw:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/b5ob7ib0tfyyll0/_LN_2760_16Bit_from_dcraw.tiff?dl=0

The above 16bit image converted to 32bit float tiff using imageMagick (“convert -depth 32”):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qb9a58y9pbjz0e9/_LN_2760_32Bit_from_imageMagick.tiff?dl=0

@Erik, happy to explain. I’m using PTGui to stitch HDRI images for visual effects purposes. The output HDRI needs to be physically accurate for VFX, so I need to be fussy about things like correcting CA, vignetting, correcting ND filter color shifts, etc. I need to do these steps before stitching, so unfortunately I can’t just fire everything into ptGui and let it sort out the raw conversion for me. And also, I want control over the raw conversion itself, to be absolutely sure I understand the pixel values I’m stitching together.

Cheers;
—Allen
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PTGui Support

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Mar 25, 2021, 4:25:43 PM3/25/21
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Hi Allen,

Thanks, I'll look into this.

Kind regards,

Joost Nieuwenhuijse
www.ptgui.com

Allen Hemberger

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Apr 5, 2021, 4:49:01 PM4/5/21
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Hi there Joost, I'm curious if you happened across any clues or further information about this? 

No rush, just curious if it was still something you were investigating. 

Thank you!
--a

PTGui Support

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Apr 7, 2021, 3:15:38 AM4/7/21
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No yet. I did download your image and will look into this.

Kind regards,

Joost Nieuwenhuijse
www.ptgui.com

On 05/04/2021 22:49, Allen Hemberger wrote:
> Hi there Joost, I'm curious if you happened across any clues or further
> information about this?
>
> No rush, just curious if it was still something you were investigating.
>
> Thank you!
> --a
>
> On Thursday, March 25, 2021 at 3:25:43 PM UTC-5 PTGui Support wrote:
>
> Hi Allen,
>
> Thanks, I'll look into this.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Joost Nieuwenhuijse
> www.ptgui.com <http://www.ptgui.com>
> >> www.ptgui.com <http://www.ptgui.com>
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ptgui/e19789d2-1307-4219-ab38-57ad6cf61723n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ptgui/e19789d2-1307-4219-ab38-57ad6cf61723n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>>.
>
> >>
> >> --
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>
> >
>
> --
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sup...@ptgui.com

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Apr 12, 2021, 12:30:50 PM4/12/21
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Hi Allen,

Your images are in an exotic 32 bit per channel uint format. PTGui
support 8 or 16 bit per channel integer images, or 32 bit floating point.

For HDRI purposes, 32 bit floating point is what you would normally use,
uint32 is not particularly useful.

Kind regards,

Joost Nieuwenhuijse
www.ptgui.com

On 05/04/2021 22:49, Allen Hemberger wrote:
> Hi there Joost, I'm curious if you happened across any clues or further
> information about this?
>
> No rush, just curious if it was still something you were investigating.
>
> Thank you!
> --a
>
> On Thursday, March 25, 2021 at 3:25:43 PM UTC-5 PTGui Support wrote:
>
> Hi Allen,
>
> Thanks, I'll look into this.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Joost Nieuwenhuijse
> www.ptgui.com <http://www.ptgui.com>
> >> www.ptgui.com <http://www.ptgui.com>
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ptgui/e19789d2-1307-4219-ab38-57ad6cf61723n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ptgui/e19789d2-1307-4219-ab38-57ad6cf61723n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>>.
>
> >>
> >> --
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> Google Groups "PTGui Support" group.
> >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from
> it, send an email to ptgui+un...@googlegroups.com.
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> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ptgui/d3541f53-b93a-1e7e-2347-bbe8a0be206d%40ptgui.com>.
>
> >
>
> --
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PTGui Support

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Apr 12, 2021, 12:32:32 PM4/12/21
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The error message is misleading, by the way. I'll fix that.

On 12/04/2021 18:30, support via PTGui Support wrote:
> Hi Allen,
>

Allen Hemberger

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Apr 12, 2021, 1:45:21 PM4/12/21
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Hi Joost, thank you so much for this spelunking! Wild; I wouldn’t have ever known how to track that down. It seems like this may be arising as a result of my version of ImageMagick (I am on a macbook, using homeBrew to install the tools). Apparently there is an “HDRI” option when installing ImageMagick, but this doesn’t seem possible via Homebrew, for reasons unclear to me just yet.

In any case, this is enough of a clue to help me troubleshoot further, thank you so much!

Oh, out of curiosity, how did you determine this? I’d love to know how to detect this issue myself as I try to figure out how to fix this…

Thank you!
—Allen
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PTGui Support

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Apr 13, 2021, 1:23:22 AM4/13/21
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Hi Allen,

I think you can see it in ExifTool, look for the tags BitsPerSample and
SampleFormat.

Kind regards,

Joost Nieuwenhuijse
www.ptgui.com

Erik Krause

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Apr 13, 2021, 4:08:49 AM4/13/21
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Am 13.04.2021 um 07:23 schrieb PTGui Support:
> I think you can see it in ExifTool, look for the tags BitsPerSample and
> SampleFormat.

For the file from
->
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qb9a58y9pbjz0e9/_LN_2760_32Bit_from_imageMagick.tiff?dl=0
exiftool gives BitsPerSample 32 32 32, but it doesn't tell whether uint
or float. SampleFormat is not given.

Interestingly photoshop CS6 opens the file without problems as 32 bit
TIFF and shows the pixel values as 32 bit float.

--
Erik Krause
http://www.erik-krause.de

PTGui Support

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Apr 13, 2021, 4:21:43 AM4/13/21
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Ah, I didn't actually check that.

According to
https://www.awaresystems.be/imaging/tiff/tifftags/sampleformat.html
the default value (if the tag is missing) is 1 (unsigned integer data).
This is how PTGui interprets it.

If imageMagick writes floats, then it's not according to the spec.

Kind regards,

Joost Nieuwenhuijse
www.ptgui.com

Allen Hemberger

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Apr 13, 2021, 4:29:43 AM4/13/21
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Yeah, same for nuke, natron, and any other image reader I’ve tried opening the image in; they all seem to handle it fine. I wonder, though, if they’re just assuming a bit depth of 32 implies floating point or doing some sort of auto-casting on open or something (I have no idea what a case might be where you’d WANT 32bit uint data)?

> On Apr 13, 2021, at 3:08 AM, Erik Krause <erik....@gmx.de> wrote:
> --
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PTGui Support

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Apr 13, 2021, 4:47:56 AM4/13/21
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I checked but your file really is 32 bit uint, not float. The PTGui
processing pipeline supports only 8 or 16 bit uints, or 32 bit floats.

I could add this to the wish list, but I think you don't intend to use
32 bit uint anyway.

Kind regards,

Joost Nieuwenhuijse
www.ptgui.com

Erik Krause

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Apr 13, 2021, 4:56:57 AM4/13/21
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Am 13.04.2021 um 10:21 schrieb PTGui Support:
> According to
> https://www.awaresystems.be/imaging/tiff/tifftags/sampleformat.html
> the default value (if the tag is missing) is 1 (unsigned integer data).
> This is how PTGui interprets it.
>
> If imageMagick writes floats, then it's not according to the spec.

I'd rather assume photoshop silently converts to float.
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