Store Depth Buffer in Alpha Channel of Screenshots

Hi crosire,

Screenshots are currently saved as 32 bit images (R8G8B8A8), however, the alpha channel is unnecessary and just always white. So could we get the option to store the depth buffer in the unused alpha channel? The result itself wouldn't look very interesting but it is useful for later editing to have the additional depth information.

Thx!

Compressing depth data into 8 bits is not really all that useful. Especially since it would be raw, non-linearized depth data (which is not normalized and therefore does not even fit into the range). And since it is raw, it can be formatted very differently from the color data (e.g. upside down, reversed, ...). So I don't think this would work well.

SuperDepth3D can read and reinterpret the depth buffer to generate 2 views, one for each eye, for stereoscopic 3D.
I think saving the RGB image alongside depth would be a lot better than saving the 2 generated views, in case there's a better depth buffer-based stereoization in the future, plus some fancy effects in image editing software .
I just read that an option to disable the alpha channel was added a while ago, but it would be nice to implement embedding the depth buffer, which I think newer iPhones do since they have a depth camera, tho perhaps using an image format that explicitly supports depth buffer like JXL, AVIF or HEIC , which might allow saving the full depth data/metadata without being constrained to an 8-bit channel.

Update: I found an addon that can export the image + depth buffer (and even normal map):
framedsc.com/ReshadeGuides/depthguide.htm
github.com/murchalloo/reshade-addons
Haven't tested it yet, but here's an example of what we can do with it 🗿