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Supported Formats
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Web Formats
Joint Photographic Experts Group - the most universal image format for photographs using lossy compression. Reduces file sizes 90-95% with minimal visible quality loss. No transparency support. Perfect for photos, web images, email attachments, and any scenario requiring small file sizes. Adjustable quality levels from 1-100. Standard since 1992 with universal device and software support. Ideal for photographs and complex images with many colors.
Portable Network Graphics - lossless image format supporting transparency and 16 million colors. Larger files than JPEG but perfect quality preservation. Supports alpha channel for smooth transparency. Excellent for logos, graphics with text, screenshots, and images requiring transparency. Better compression than GIF for photos. Perfect for web graphics, UI elements, and any image needing lossless quality or transparency. Standard format for web graphics since 1996.
Web Picture format - modern image format by Google providing 25-35% smaller files than JPEG at equivalent quality. Supports both lossy and lossless compression plus transparency. Superior compression algorithms reducing bandwidth usage. Native browser support (96%+ coverage). Perfect for website optimization, web images, and reducing page load times. Combines best features of JPEG, PNG, and GIF. Recommended for modern web development.
Graphics Interchange Format - image format supporting animation and transparency with 256-color limitation. Small file sizes for simple images. Perfect for simple animations, emojis, memes, and graphics with few colors. Lossless for limited palette. Inefficient for photographs (use JPEG) or high-color graphics (use PNG). Universal support since 1987. Standard format for simple web animations and reaction images.
Scalable Vector Graphics - XML-based vector format rendering perfectly at any size. Infinitely scalable without quality loss or pixelation. Small file sizes for geometric shapes and illustrations. Editable with text editors and design software. Perfect for logos, icons, diagrams, and graphics requiring scaling. Supports animation and interactivity. Standard for responsive web graphics and resolution-independent designs. Essential format for modern web icons.
Icon File Format - specialized format for Windows icons containing multiple image sizes (16x16 to 256x256 pixels). Single file provides icons for all display resolutions. Used for favicons, application icons, and Windows shell icons. Supports transparency and multiple color depths. Perfect for website favicons, Windows program icons, and shortcut icons. Standard format for Windows icons since Windows 1.0. Essential for professional Windows applications.
AV1 Image File Format - next-generation image format based on AV1 video codec providing better compression than WebP and JPEG. 20-50% smaller files at equivalent quality. Supports HDR, wide color gamut, and transparency. Cutting-edge compression technology. Growing browser support (85%+ and increasing). Perfect for future-proof web images and maximum efficiency. Better quality at smaller sizes than any previous format. Recommended for modern websites prioritizing performance.
Bitmap Image File - uncompressed raster format from Microsoft providing pixel-perfect quality with large file sizes. No compression means huge files (1MB+ for screenshots). Fast to load and display. Simple format with universal Windows support. Perfect for temporary graphics, screen captures, and scenarios where compression artifacts are unacceptable. Legacy format largely replaced by PNG. Convert to PNG or JPEG for practical use and storage.
Tagged Image File Format - flexible format supporting multiple pages, layers, and various compression methods. Industry standard for professional photography, publishing, and archival. Supports lossless compression, 16-bit color depth, and extensive metadata. Large file sizes but excellent quality. Perfect for print publishing, photo archival, professional photography, and scenarios requiring maximum quality and flexibility. Used in medical imaging and professional scanning.
Professional Formats
Photoshop Document - Adobe Photoshop's native format preserving layers, effects, masks, and all editing capabilities. Supports 16-bit and 32-bit color depths for professional work. Large file sizes due to layer data and editing information. Perfect for ongoing design projects, professional photo editing, and collaborative design work. Not suitable for final output (export to JPEG/PNG). Essential format for professional graphic design and photo manipulation workflows. Industry standard for design files.
OpenEXR - high dynamic range image format developed by Industrial Light & Magic for visual effects and animation. Stores 16-bit or 32-bit floating-point values per channel enabling enormous dynamic range. Supports multiple layers, arbitrary channels, and lossless/lossy compression. Industry standard for VFX, CGI, and professional 3D rendering. Perfect for HDR photography, compositing, and scenarios requiring maximum color precision. Used extensively in film production and high-end visual effects.
High Dynamic Range Image - format storing luminance and color information with greater range than standard images. Captures and displays brightness levels impossible in JPEG/PNG. Uses 32-bit floating-point encoding. Perfect for realistic lighting in 3D rendering, environment maps, and HDR photography. Common in game development and architectural visualization. Enables realistic tone mapping and exposure adjustment. Essential for professional lighting workflows.
DirectDraw Surface - Microsoft texture format for games and 3D applications supporting compressed textures and mipmaps. Optimized for GPU loading with hardware-accelerated decompression. Stores multiple resolution levels (mipmaps) in single file. Standard format for game textures (DirectX, Unity, Unreal). Supports various compression algorithms (DXT1, DXT5, BC7). Perfect for game development, 3D modeling, and real-time rendering. Essential format for game asset pipelines.
Truevision TGA/Targa - raster graphics format supporting 8-32 bits per pixel with alpha channel. Uncompressed or RLE compressed for fast loading. Standard format for video editing, animation, and texture mapping. Excellent color accuracy with optional lossless compression. Perfect for video frame sequences, animation frames, and game textures. Widely supported in 3D software and video editing applications. Reliable format for professional media production.
JPEG 2000 - advanced image format using wavelet compression providing better quality than JPEG at equivalent file sizes. Supports lossless and lossy compression, progressive decoding, and ROI coding. Used in medical imaging, digital cinema, and archival. Better compression artifacts than JPEG. Slower encoding/decoding. Perfect for medical imaging, digital preservation, and applications requiring superior compression. Limited web browser support.
JPEG Stereo - stereoscopic 3D image format storing left and right eye views side-by-side or top-bottom. Based on standard JPEG with special arrangement for 3D viewing. Used for 3D photography, VR content, and stereoscopic displays. Compatible with 3D TVs and VR headsets. Perfect for 3D photography, stereoscopic content creation, and VR/AR applications. Requires special viewing equipment for proper 3D effect.
Portable Float Map - floating-point image format storing HDR color data. Simple format with 32-bit float values per channel. Used in computer graphics for HDR images and height maps. Uncompressed format with large file sizes. Perfect for HDR photography processing, displacement maps, and scientific imaging. Common in 3D rendering and simulation applications. Alternative to OpenEXR for simple HDR storage.
Flexible Image Transport System - scientific image format used primarily in astronomy. Stores astronomical images with extensive metadata headers. Supports multiple data arrays and tables. Standard format for astronomical data archives. Perfect for astronomical imaging, scientific data exchange, and research applications. Used by major observatories and space agencies worldwide. Essential format for astronomical research and data sharing.
How to Convert Files
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is an HRZ file and why does this format exist?
An HRZ file is a simple raster image format commonly associated with old Unix-based graphics tools, retro workstation environments, and certain scientific visualization pipelines. The format typically stores raw pixel data with a lightweight header or no header at all, making it extremely fast to load and easy to parse. HRZ files were designed for situations where absolute simplicity mattered more than portability, metadata, or compression. Because many early graphics systems lacked standardized formats, HRZ served as a convenient way to dump framebuffer output or exchange raster data between tools.
HRZ files appear today mostly in legacy archives, digital preservation projects, retro-computing environments, and experimental research systems from the 80s and 90s. They represent a transitional format-simple enough for minimalistic tooling but flexible enough to hold arbitrary grayscale or RGB data depending on the originating software.
How is an HRZ file structured internally?
Although variations exist, HRZ files tend to follow a predictable low-level structure:
Minimal or Implicit Header
Some HRZ variants include width and height encoded as plain integers at the start, while others rely on external information entirely.
Raw Pixel Stream
Pixel data is stored consecutively, usually in grayscale or 8-bit-per-channel RGB. No compression or chunking is used.
No Metadata Layer
There is no EXIF, gamma, DPI, ICC profile, timestamp, orientation, or embedded descriptive fields.
Straightforward Row Ordering
HRZ files generally store pixels row-by-row, top to bottom, although some legacy tools invert this order.
This simple structure makes HRZ extremely fast to decode but also highly dependent on external context to interpret correctly.
Where are HRZ files used today?
HRZ remains relevant mainly in archival, scientific, and retro environments:
Unix Image Archives
Early Unix workstations and research systems often saved images as HRZ dumps for debugging and visualization.
Scientific Data Acquisition
Older lab equipment exported HRZ frames because the format required almost no computation to generate.
Retro Graphics Toolchains
Preserved workstation software often includes HRZ sample images used for testing display routines.
Frame Buffer Dumps
Developers historically used HRZ files for direct framebuffer captures during graphics development.
Digital Preservation
Historical datasets containing HRZ files appear in research archives and legacy Unix tape images.
Specialized Engineering Tools
Some proprietary modeling and simulation environments stored intermediate renders as HRZ dumps.
Minimal Storage Systems
Embedded hardware used HRZ-like formats for quick, predictable raster I/O.
Although niche today, HRZ remains important wherever legacy raster workflows still exist.
Why do HRZ images often look low-quality?
Most HRZ variants store only grayscale or 8-bit RGB with no compression, noise reduction, or dithering.
HRZ’s lack of gamma, color profiles, or tone mapping leads to flat or inconsistent brightness across systems.
Some HRZ images originate from low-resolution hardware or sensors that introduce visual artifacts.
How does HRZ compare to more modern formats like PNG or JPEG?
Unlike PNG or JPEG, HRZ stores raw pixel data with no compression, resulting in much larger file sizes.
Modern formats include metadata, alpha channels, color management, and optimized compression-features HRZ completely lacks.
HRZ’s only real advantage is simplicity: any system can decode it with a few lines of code.
Does HRZ support color, transparency, or high bit depth?
Some HRZ files contain raw RGB data, but many are limited to grayscale depending on the original tool.
Transparency is not supported-HRZ predates alpha channels entirely.
Bit depth is typically restricted to 8-bit channels, making HRZ unsuitable for HDR or precision imaging.
Why can’t many image viewers open HRZ files?
HRZ never had a universal specification, causing differences across software environments.
Many HRZ files require manual dimension input because the header is missing or ambiguous.
Modern image libraries do not prioritize obscure formats like HRZ, so native support is rare.
Why do HRZ conversions sometimes fail or look distorted?
Conversion issues often arise from missing or inconsistent structural information:
Unknown Dimensions
If width and height are not included, converters guess the layout, often resulting in warped or stretched images.
Row Alignment Differences
Some HRZ variants pad rows to specific byte boundaries, confusing modern decoders.
Color Mode Ambiguity
Tools may disagree on whether the pixel stream is grayscale or RGB.
Inverted Row Order
Legacy HRZ sources sometimes store images bottom-up, producing flipped results when decoded.
Truncated Pixel Streams
Old recording tools occasionally produced incomplete HRZ dumps, leading to corrupted output.
Using conversion tools knowledgeable about multiple HRZ variants improves reliability.
Does HRZ support metadata or color calibration?
No-HRZ includes no metadata fields whatsoever.
There is no gamma correction, ICC profile, color temperature, or orientation information.
All interpretation must be handled externally or by convention.
What can HRZ still be used for today?
Despite being outdated, HRZ remains useful in certain environments:
Legacy Data Restoration
Preservation teams decode HRZ images from archived research tapes, Unix home directories, and workstation backups.
Scientific Equipment Maintenance
Older lab systems still output HRZ frames for compatibility with historic analysis pipelines.
Embedded Debugging
Raw HRZ dumps help developers inspect framebuffers in microcontroller or FPGA projects.
Retro Computing
Enthusiasts view HRZ screenshots from old X11, Sun, SGI, or HP workstation software.
Unix Graphics Ecosystems
ImageMagick and some niche tools still include HRZ support for completeness.
Low-Level Pixel Analysis
Researchers use HRZ for testing filtering algorithms because the pixel data is unprocessed.
Proprietary Historical Software
Certain discontinued engineering tools store intermediary visualizations in HRZ format.
Algorithm Benchmarking
Raw HRZ streams provide predictable test data for experimental rendering pipelines.
Format Research
Scholars of digital imaging history analyze HRZ to understand early raster standards.
Art and Experimental Graphics
Some artists use HRZ intentionally for a raw, unfinished, retro-digital aesthetic.
Why are HRZ files so large?
HRZ stores every pixel at full size with no compression, producing heavy raw data streams.
RGB variants triple file size compared to grayscale because each pixel stores three bytes.
High-resolution HRZ files grow exponentially and can quickly become unwieldy.
How large can HRZ files become before causing problems?
Older software assumes HRZ files are small, and extremely large ones can overflow buffers.
Some tools fail when the image width exceeds historical byte limits (e.g., 2048 pixels).
Large HRZ files strain terminal-based viewers that lack efficient scaling.
Does HRZ support multiple frames or image sequences?
No-HRZ stores exactly one raster image.
Multi-frame workflows simulated this by writing multiple HRZ files in sequence.
Some early animations used chained HRZ streams, but each file remained independent.
Why do HRZ images sometimes appear rotated or upside down?
Certain HRZ variants write pixels bottom-to-top, reversing the expected scanline direction.
Padding or alignment bytes may shift rows, creating skewed or wrapped displays.
Because HRZ was never standardized, orientation inconsistencies are extremely common.
Is the HRZ format still relevant today?
For mainstream image handling, HRZ is obsolete-but it plays a critical role in legacy and archival workflows.
Its predictable, raw structure makes it ideal for debugging framebuffers, analyzing pixel-level data, or restoring vintage images.
HRZ will never compete with modern formats, but in environments where simplicity matters more than features, it remains surprisingly useful.
About the HRZ Format
HRZ is a file format used in specific workflows. The exact characteristics depend on the implementation and chosen settings.
- Format Type
- File format
- Origin
- Industry-developed format
- Common Uses
- Various applications that support HRZ
- Compression
- Depends on implementation
Sources and References
Format details on this page are based on the official specifications and documentation below.
- Image file type and format guide- MDN Web Docs