but for those of you who don't:
"ILM has released OpenEXR as free software."
"OpenEXR is a high dynamic-range (HDR) image file format developed by Industrial Light & Magic for use in computer imaging applications.
OpenEXR has already been used by ILM on 4 major motion pictures -- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Men in Black II, Gangs of New York, and Signs -- and is also being used on several other movies currently in production.
OpenEXR's features include:
* Higher dynamic range and color precision than existing 8- and 10-bit image file formats.
* Support for 16-bit floating-point pixels. The pixel format, called "half," is compatible with the half datatype in NVidia's Cg graphics language and is supported natively on their new GeForce FX and Quadro FX 3D graphics solutions.
* Multiple lossless image compression algorithms. Some of the included codecs can achieve 2:1 lossless compression ratios on images with film grain.
* Extensibility. New compression codecs and image types can easily be added by extending the C++ classes included in the OpenEXR software distribution. New image attributes (strings, vectors, integers, etc.) can be added to OpenEXR image headers without affecting backward compatibility with existing OpenEXR applications. "
-http://www.openexr.com
I think this could be a big deal for blender, but check out the site and judge for yourself.
Home:http://www.openexr.com/index.html
Samples: http://www.openexr.com/samples.html
Meekrob