[5] OpenEXR, or EXR for short, is a deep raster format developed by ILM and broadly used in the computer-graphics industry, both visual effects and animation.

OpenEXR's multi-resolution and arbitrary channel format makes it appealing for compositing, as it alleviates several painful elements of the process.

The format has been updated several times, adding support for tiles, mipmaps, new compression methods, and other features.

The following options are available:[16] From OpenEXR.org's Technical Introduction: The ILM OpenEXR file format was designed and implemented by Florian Kainz, Wojciech Jarosz, and Rod Bogart.

Drew Hess packaged and adapted ILM's internal source code for public release and maintains the OpenEXR software distribution.