Editing RAW photos

RAW is a special file format used for capturing digital images, favored by professional photographers. RAW offers greater flexibility in editing and resulting in higher-quality images.

RAW files aren't actual images though; they contain unprocessed data from the camera's sensor. When imported into digital image editors, this data is demosaiced into an editable photo. Once processed, it can be exported to standard image formats such as JPEG or PNG.

Shooting JPEG vs RAW

When shooting JPEG, the white balance, saturation, lightness, or shadows are processed by the camera and applied to a photo automatically. JPEG is also a lossy file format that uses compression to make photos more lightweight which saves space on the memory card, but at the same time, leaves out certain information from the photo.
RAW files provide some raw and unprocessed information about the properties of a photo collected directly from the camera. This lets you adjust these properties manually to make sure the photos look their best. As an example, editing RAW images shot in low light can help bring out some of the image detail that would be impossible to recover from a JPEG. Because of these characteristics, the RAW file format is a staple in professional photography.

Supported RAW formats

Photomator can open and work with RAW files from over 750 different camera models. Many RAW camera formats can be opened in Photomator and Pixelmator Pro due to native RAW support on iOS and macOS. However, there are cameras and RAW formats are not yet supported on Apple devices. To address this, we've added compatibility for additional cameras, including GoPro, Fujifilm and Nikon compressed RAWs.

Editing RAW in Photos

In Photos, you'll find all RAW photos marked with a special badge. Many digital cameras also have a setting for shooting JPEG+RAW image pairs. This creates a RAW file plus a JPEG version of the photo processed in-camera. When opening images, Photomator will prioritize RAW files to JPEG as they contain more data to work with, but you can always change this behavior in Photomator settings.

RAW files don't have to be imported if you're editing from Photos. Upon opening, Photomator creates a .photo-edits file where it saves all the changes you make and makes it possible for these changes to be restored the next time you open a photo in Photomator.

Since RAW is a lossless file format and keeps all the image data, shooting in RAW tends to produce quite large files. In case a RAW photo is too large to be opened, you'll see an alert. The maximum image size Photomator can work with varies based on your device model.

Photomator always opens the last saved version of a photo, so if you modify the same image in Photos or use other image editors, these changes will reflect in Photomator, merging all the nondestructive changes you may have applied previously.

Importing RAW in Files

To start editing a RAW photo, you need to import it to Photomator first. You can do that by simply tapping a desired photo in the Files browser. This creates a new PHOTO file where Photomator stores the RAW photo along with all the adjustments and edits from your editing sessions. So, to continue editing a RAW photo you've already started working on, make sure you're opening a file marked with the PHOTO extension. Opening the original RAW will create a new PHOTO file for the new edits.

Using batch editing workflows, you can import multiple RAW photos to Photomator at a time.

RAW files stored in locations other than the Photos browser are not marked with badges but can be easily recognized based on the file size which is typically larger than the regular JPEG or PNG. If you touch and hold a file, you can also check its type under Info.