diff --git a/docker/frontend/scripts/half-check.mjs b/docker/frontend/scripts/half-check.mjs
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0f39cd2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docker/frontend/scripts/half-check.mjs
@@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
+// The RAW develop hands its band plane to Skia as half (src/engine/halfFloat.ts)
+// because the GPU backend quantises an F32 image to the 1/255 grid — which is
+// exactly the grid the shadows live under. This checks the conversion itself:
+// the named encodings, and that no plane value in the sensor's range moves more
+// than the 16-bit plane step it came from.
+//
+//   node scripts/half-check.mjs
+import assert from 'node:assert/strict';
+import { readFileSync } from 'node:fs';
+import ts from 'typescript';
+
+const src = readFileSync(new URL('../src/engine/halfFloat.ts', import.meta.url), 'utf8');
+const js = ts.transpileModule(src, {
+  compilerOptions: { module: ts.ModuleKind.ESNext, target: ts.ScriptTarget.ES2022 },
+}).outputText;
+const { f32ToF16 } = await import(`data:text/javascript,${encodeURIComponent(js)}`);
+
+function encode(...values) {
+  const src32 = Float32Array.from(values);
+  const out = new Uint16Array(values.length);
+  f32ToF16(src32, out, values.length);
+  return out;
+}
+// Independent decoder, from the IEEE 754 binary16 layout.
+function decode(h) {
+  const sign = h & 0x8000 ? -1 : 1;
+  const exp = (h >> 10) & 0x1f;
+  const man = h & 0x3ff;
+  if (exp === 0x1f) return sign * Infinity;
+  if (exp === 0) return sign * man * 2 ** -24;
+  return sign * (1 + man / 1024) * 2 ** (exp - 15);
+}
+
+const named = [
+  [0, 0x0000], [1, 0x3c00], [0.5, 0x3800], [2, 0x4000], [-1, 0xbc00],
+  [2 ** -24, 0x0001], [1e-9, 0x0000], [70000, 0x7c00], [65504, 0x7bff],
+];
+for (const [v, bits] of named) {
+  assert.equal(encode(v)[0], bits, `${v} -> expected ${bits.toString(16)}`);
+}
+
+// Every value the plane can carry — a 14-bit sensor from its black floor to its
+// white level — has to come back within half precision's 2^-11 relative error,
+// and the shadows within a far finer absolute one, since that is where the
+// develop's black level lives. 1e-3 relative is a tenth of an output level at
+// white; the absolute bound covers the values whose relative error says nothing.
+let worstRel = 0, worstAbs = 0;
+for (let n = 0; n <= 16312; n++) {
+  const v = n / 65535;
+  const back = decode(encode(v)[0]);
+  worstAbs = Math.max(worstAbs, Math.abs(back - v));
+  if (v > 0) worstRel = Math.max(worstRel, Math.abs(back - v) / v);
+}
+assert.ok(worstRel < 1e-3, `worst relative error ${worstRel}`);
+assert.ok(worstAbs < 1e-4, `worst absolute error ${worstAbs} at raw ${Math.round(worstAbs * 65535)}`);
+console.log(`plane 0..16312: worst ${worstRel.toExponential(2)} relative, ${worstAbs.toExponential(2)} absolute`);
+
+console.log('half-check ok');
diff --git a/docker/frontend/src/engine/halfFloat.ts b/docker/frontend/src/engine/halfFloat.ts
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..74b8ee3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docker/frontend/src/engine/halfFloat.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+// Float32 → half, for the one place in the pipeline that hands raw numbers to
+// Skia: the RAW develop's band plane.
+//
+// Skia's GPU backend does not keep a float32 texture. A band uploaded as
+// RGBA_F32 + an sRGB tag comes back sampled off a 1/255 grid — the shader asked
+// for fract(v * 100) and got the wrap of round(v * 255) / 255 on every value
+// (probed in Chromium/ANGLE against the same shader on a raster surface, which
+// returned the floats untouched). The plane is raw/65535, so the shadows — the
+// whole point of the develop's black level — sit at 1e-3 and quantise to zero:
+// the browser's own develop came back with 41189 pixels at luma < 2 and the dark
+// end speckled blue/yellow, while the same shader on a raster surface produced
+// none. A half IS uploaded as float, so this keeps the plane exact on both.
+//
+// ponytail: 10-bit mantissa is 0.05% relative — a tenth of an output level at
+// the white point and finer than the plane's own 1/65535 step in the shadows.
+// Take RGBA_16161616 unorm instead if a develop ever has to be bit-exact.
+const scratch = new Float32Array(1);
+const scratchBits = new Uint32Array(scratch.buffer);
+
+export function f32ToF16(src: Float32Array, dst: Uint16Array, count: number): void {
+  for (let i = 0; i < count; i++) {
+    scratch[0] = src[i];
+    const x = scratchBits[0];
+    const sign = (x >> 16) & 0x8000;
+    let exp = (x >> 23) & 0xff;
+    const man = x & 0x7fffff;
+    if (exp === 0xff) { dst[i] = sign | 0x7c00; continue; } // inf / nan
+    if (exp < 103) { dst[i] = sign; continue; } // underflows the subnormal range
+    if (exp < 113) { // subnormal half
+      const shift = 113 - exp;
+      const full = man | 0x800000;
+      dst[i] = sign | ((full >> (shift + 13)) + ((full >> (shift + 12)) & 1));
+      continue;
+    }
+    if (exp > 142) { dst[i] = sign | 0x7c00; continue; } // overflows to inf
+    exp -= 112;
+    const rest = man & 0x1fff; // round to nearest even
+    // The mantissa's rounding carry has to reach the exponent, so add — `|`
+    // would drop it, since bit 10 is set in most exponents.
+    dst[i] = sign | ((exp << 10) + (man >> 13) + (rest > 0x1000 || (rest === 0x1000 && ((man >> 13) & 1)) ? 1 : 0));
+  }
+}
diff --git a/docker/frontend/src/engine/rawDevelop.ts b/docker/frontend/src/engine/rawDevelop.ts
index 32fbaaf..4388568 100644
--- a/docker/frontend/src/engine/rawDevelop.ts
+++ b/docker/frontend/src/engine/rawDevelop.ts
@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@
 // with an OffscreenCanvas if the develop ever blocks the UI visibly.
 import LibRaw from 'libraw-wasm';
 import { cameraMatch, type Mat3 } from './cameraMatch';
+import { f32ToF16 } from './halfFloat';
 import { Skia } from './skiaShim';
 
 // What `imageData()` returns for the settings below: 16-bit, 3 channels, with
@@ -136,6 +137,9 @@ export async function developRaw(bytes: Uint8Array): Promise<Uint8Array> {
 
     const bandH = Math.max(1, Math.min(h, Math.floor(BAND_PIXELS / w)));
     const f32 = new Float32Array(w * bandH * 4);
+    // The band goes up as half, not float32: the GPU backend puts an F32 image
+    // on the 1/255 grid and the shadows quantise to black (see halfFloat.ts).
+    const half = new Uint16Array(w * bandH * 4);
     for (let y0 = 0; y0 < h; y0 += bandH) {
       const rows = Math.min(bandH, h - y0);
       let o = 0;
@@ -145,10 +149,11 @@ export async function developRaw(bytes: Uint8Array): Promise<Uint8Array> {
         f32[o++] = data[i + 2] / SAMPLE_MAX;
         f32[o++] = 1;
       }
+      f32ToF16(f32, half, w * rows * 4);
       const band = Skia.Image.MakeImage(
-        { width: w, height: rows, colorType: Skia.ColorType.RGBA_F32, alphaType: Skia.AlphaType.Unpremul },
-        new Uint8Array(f32.buffer, 0, w * rows * 16),
-        w * 16
+        { width: w, height: rows, colorType: Skia.ColorType.RGBA_F16, alphaType: Skia.AlphaType.Unpremul },
+        new Uint8Array(half.buffer, 0, w * rows * 8),
+        w * 8
       );
       if (!band) throw new Error('band image failed');
       const child = band.makeShaderOptions(