File Format Guide

What is a RAW file?

A RAW file is not a photograph — it is the unprocessed measurement your camera's sensor made. Understanding that distinction explains why RAW files look flat, why every program renders them slightly differently, and why they cannot simply be displayed like a JPEG.

RAW at a glance

What is a RAW file?: Aside from being a general term for unprocessed sensor data, `.raw` is specifically used as a file extension by some camera manufacturers like Panasonic and Leica.
How to open a RAW file?: Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, or camera-specific manufacturer software.
Typical use of a RAW file:: Professional digital photography.
Origin of the RAW file:: Varies by manufacturer.
Modern alternatives for RAW:: DNG.

RAW specifications

What it is	Minimally processed sensor data, not a finished image
Common extensions	.cr2, .cr3 (Canon), .nef, .nrw (Nikon), .arw (Sony), .raf (Fujifilm), .orf (Olympus), .rw2 (Panasonic), .dng (Adobe)
Compression	Uncompressed or lossless; some makers offer a lossy option
Colour depth	12 or 14 bits per channel from the sensor, versus JPEG's 8
Colour	Single-channel sensor readings behind a colour filter array — not yet RGB
Standardisation	None — each manufacturer uses its own, often undocumented, variant
Embedded preview	Almost always contains a full-size JPEG rendering
Browser support	None

What the sensor actually records

A camera sensor does not see colour. Each photosite measures brightness only, and colour is obtained by placing a filter over the array — usually a Bayer pattern where half the sites are green and a quarter each red and blue. The RAW file stores those single-channel readings directly, along with the metadata describing how they should be interpreted.

Turning that into an image requires demosaicing: reconstructing three colour values for every pixel by interpolating from the neighbours. Then white balance, colour matrices, tone curves, sharpening, and noise reduction have to be applied. Shooting JPEG means the camera does all of this immediately and discards the original measurements. Shooting RAW means it is deferred to you.

Why RAW files look flat, and why editors disagree

A RAW file opened without processing looks dull and low-contrast because none of the interpretation has happened yet — no tone curve, no saturation, no sharpening. What you see on the camera's rear screen is not the RAW; it is the embedded JPEG preview the camera generated using its own picture style.

Because every editor implements demosaicing and colour interpretation differently, the same RAW opened in different software genuinely produces different images. Neither is wrong. This is also why support for a new camera model takes time to appear: the vendor's variant has to be reverse-engineered and a colour profile built for that specific sensor.

The 14-bit advantage

RAW records 12 or 14 bits per channel against JPEG's 8, which is the difference between roughly 16,000 tonal levels and 256. That extra range is invisible in a well-exposed shot straight out of the camera. It becomes decisive the moment you need to recover a blown sky or lift a shadow — the information is still there in a RAW, and has already been rounded away in a JPEG.

This is the practical case for shooting RAW: not that it looks better initially, but that it survives editing. A two-stop exposure correction that a RAW absorbs without complaint will leave a JPEG banded and blotchy.

Converting RAW files in a browser

Full RAW development requires per-camera colour profiles and a demosaicing engine — it is what Lightroom, Capture One, and darktable exist to do, and it cannot be done properly in a browser tab. What a browser-based converter can do is extract the full-size JPEG preview the camera embedded in the file, which is exactly what you see on the camera's screen.

For quickly getting a shareable image out of a RAW without installing anything, that preview is usually all you need. For actual editing — recovering highlights, correcting white balance, working the shadows — use a proper RAW developer, because that is the entire point of having shot RAW.

Convert RAW files in your browser

Zolvo's image converter runs entirely on your own machine — your files are never uploaded to a server. Drop a RAW file in and pick an output format, or jump straight to a common one:

RAW → JPG RAW → PNG

RAW — frequently asked questions

Why can't I open my RAW file?

Because RAW is not one format. Every manufacturer uses its own variant, often undocumented and frequently changed between camera models, so software has to add support model by model. A very new camera can take months before mainstream editors catch up.

Is RAW better quality than JPEG?

It holds far more information — 12 or 14 bits per channel against 8, with no compression artefacts and no baked-in processing. Straight out of the camera a JPEG often looks better, because the camera has already applied its processing. RAW's advantage appears when you edit.

Can I convert RAW to JPG in a browser?

You can extract the full-size JPEG preview the camera embedded in the file, which is the image shown on the camera's rear screen. That is not the same as developing the RAW — for that you need software with a colour profile for your specific camera.

Should I keep my RAW files after converting them?

Yes, if you might ever re-edit the photo. The JPEG is one interpretation of the data with everything else discarded; the RAW keeps every option open. Photographers treat RAW files as negatives, for exactly this reason.

Related formats