tev

High dynamic range (HDR) image viewer for people who care about colors.

• __Lightning fast:__ starts up instantly, loads hundreds of images in seconds.
• __Accurate:__ understands HDR and color profiles (ICC, CICP, etc.). Displays HDR on all operating systems.
• __Versatile:__ supports many [file formats](#file-formats) and their quirks: gain maps, aux channels, animation, and more metadata than just EXIF & XMP. Pixel-peep: histograms, tonemaps, error metrics, etc. in any color space.

_A false-color comparison of two multi-layer OpenEXR images of a beach ball. Image courtesy of openexr-images (opens in a new tab)._

Usage

Graphical User Interface

Images can be opened via a file dialog or by dragging them into __tev__. They can be reloaded, closed, or filtered at any time, so don't worry about opening more images than exactly needed.

Select an image by left-clicking it, and optionally select a reference image to compare the current selection to by right-clicking. For convenience, the current selection can be moved with the Up/Down or the 1-9 keys. For a comprehensive list of keyboard shortcuts click the little "?" icon at the top (or press "h") or view this online visualization (opens in a new tab).

If the interface seems overwhelming, you can hover any controls to view an explanatory tooltip.

Command Line

__tev__ takes images as positional command-line arguments:

By default, all layers and channels are loaded, but individual layers or channels can also be specified. In the following example, the depth layer of foo.exr and the r, g, and b channels of foo.exr and bar.exr are loaded.

Other command-line arguments exist (e.g. for starting __tev__ with a pre-set exposure value). For a list of all arguments simply invoke

Over the Network

__tev__ can also be controlled remotely over the network using a simple TCP-based protocol.

The --host argument specifies the IP and port __tev__ is listening to. By default, __tev__ only accepts connections from localhost (127.0.0.1:14158), which is useful, for example, as frontend for a supported renderer like pbrt version 4.