About DPX Files
Digital Moving-Picture
DPX (Digital Picture Exchange) is a SMPTE standard file format for digital intermediate and visual effects work. It stores per-frame image data with rich metadata for color management and is widely used in film post-production pipelines.
Family
Raster & Vector Images
Extension
.dpx
MIME Type
image/x-dpx
Can Use As
HOW DPX
CAME TO BE.
DPX — Digital Picture Exchange — was standardized by SMPTE in 1994 (SMPTE 268M) as a per-frame file format for digital film intermediate storage. The lineage goes deeper: DPX descends from Kodak’s Cineon format (1993), designed for their first digital film scanner. A single DPX file stores one frame of film at full resolution, logarithmic color encoding that matches negative film response, and metadata identifying the source reel, time of day, keykode, and ownership.
For 30+ years DPX has been the film industry’s lingua franca for intermediate color-graded sequences. A Hollywood feature film is essentially a folder of 130 000 DPX files — one per frame at 24 fps × 90 minutes. Color grading, visual effects, and mastering pipelines all ingest DPX sequences. OpenEXR has supplanted DPX for many workflows (better compression, float precision), but DPX remains the de-facto archival master for scanned film negatives.
CURIOSITIES &
TRIVIA.
Every frame of a Hollywood feature film master is typically a DPX file — a 90-minute movie at 24 fps is ~130 000 individual DPX files totaling 1-3 TB.
DPX's logarithmic color encoding matches the density curve of real film negative — which is why it preserves highlight detail that linear formats clip.
DPX descends from Cineon, the 1993 format Kodak designed for its first digital film scanner.
Every scanned 35mm film negative at 4K is typically stored as 12.6 MB of DPX per frame — no compression by design.
Blackmagic Resolve, Baselight, and every color grading platform reads and writes DPX natively.
STRENGTHS &
LIMITATIONS.
Strengths
- Industry-standard archival format for film.
- Logarithmic color encoding preserves film look.
- Lossless — no generation degradation.
- SMPTE standardized (SMPTE 268M).
- Every VFX and color-grading app reads and writes DPX.
Limitations
- No compression — file sizes are enormous.
- Not a display format — requires color-managed pipelines.
- Gradually superseded by OpenEXR in modern VFX.
- Overkill for anything but professional film work.
Typical Sizes & Weights
2K DPX frame (2048×1556, 10-bit)
~12 MB
4K DPX frame (4096×3112, 10-bit)
~50 MB
90-min feature at 4K DPX sequence
~6 TB
Technical Specifications
- MIME type
- image/x-dpx
- Extension
- .dpx
- Standard
- SMPTE 268M
- Bit depths
- 8, 10, 12, 16 bits per channel
- Color encoding
- Logarithmic (Cineon-style) by convention
CONVERT FROM
DPX
Common Use Cases
Film post-production, VFX compositing, digital intermediate workflows
Related Formats
Popular comparisons
DPX vs JPG
Differences, file size, and when to choose each format.
DPX vs PNG
Differences, file size, and when to choose each format.
DPX vs WEBP
Differences, file size, and when to choose each format.
DPX vs AVIF
Differences, file size, and when to choose each format.
DPX vs GIF
Differences, file size, and when to choose each format.
DPX vs BMP
Differences, file size, and when to choose each format.
Popular DPX conversions
The most-requested destinations when starting from DPX.
Frequently Asked Questions about DPX
Frequently Asked Questions
DPX (Digital Moving-Picture) is an image format used to store raster graphics — a two-dimensional grid of pixels describing a picture. It is part of the raster & vector images family and designed around a specific trade-off between file size, visual fidelity, and feature support (transparency, colour depth, compression type). Photographers, web designers, and content creators choose DPX when its particular strengths match the publishing target.
Most desktop photo viewers (Windows Photos, macOS Preview, GIMP, Photoshop, Affinity Photo) open DPX natively. On mobile, iOS Photos and Google Photos display DPX in the gallery when supported by the OS. If the format is rare or new, convert to JPG or PNG first — both are universally readable — using our DPX to JPG or DPX to PNG converter.
Upload the DPX to KaijuConverter and pick a target format (JPG, PNG, WebP, HEIC, TIFF, BMP, SVG, PDF). The conversion runs in the browser via ImageMagick and returns a download in seconds. No account or installation required; both input and output delete automatically within two hours.
It depends on the task. JPG is the smallest file size for photographs; PNG is lossless with transparency; DPX has its own niche that may favour colour depth, animation, or encoding efficiency over one or both of those. For the final web publish, test all three and measure file size plus visible quality on real content.