R20 jpg output options: 8 bit only? Any way to get higher quality jpg output?

#1

I’m stuck on r20 for a while if that matters due to a variety of other compatibility issues with various plugs, older hardware,e etc.

Everything is stable, so don’t want to mess with that even if I could at the moment.

I need to output a lot of stills for video poster frames, and some services (I forget which) only accept jpgs.

I see that I have a 16 bit option for png, but only 8 bit for jpg even with max quality, and it definitely shows in the output… which looks bad enough that it’s worth outputting a png, then using a third party app to convert to jpg.

There’s a lot of them, though, so that’s very inefficient. Is there any way to coax a higer quality jpg out of the standard render engine?

#2

JPEG only really supports 8-bit, so you’ll have to use something else if you want to go deeper.

#3

I wondered if that might be the case since most other programs I work with don’t have a bit depth option at all for jpg… but then not understanding why it is that it looks better to output from c4d as a png with 16 bit, then use 3rd party program to convert that to jpg with max settings. There don’t appear to be any other render options in c4d that I don’t already have maxed.

#4

AFAIK you can use Bridge to batch convert to JPEG.

#5

Even though your Text seems “beginner” in the Bit department, you might have a linear workflow problem, check your project settings and your color workflow.

Anyway save as tif / EXR … to have 32Bit.

#6

I typically always use png for delivery stills, I just noticed that a few outlets require jpg, and most of the other software I use doesn’t give any specific bit depth options for jpg. Limited bit depth of jpg doesn’t shock me, but I am definitely getting higher quality jpgs elsewhere.

The mp4 renders look fine from the same project, so, unless I’m missing something, that means it’s an output as opposed to workflow issue, right?