Light Developer - RAW files

The camera RAW files

A camera raw image file contains minimally processed data from the image sensor. Raw files are so named because they are not yet processed and therefore are not ready to be printed or edited with a bitmap graphics editor. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of raw formats in use by different models of digital equipment (like cameras or film scanners).

Raw image files are sometimes called digital negatives, as they fulfill the same role as negatives in film photography: that is, the negative is not directly usable as an image, but has all of the information needed to create an image. Likewise, the process of converting a raw image file into a viewable format is sometimes called developing a raw image, by analogy with the film development process used to convert photographic film into viewable prints. The selection of the final choice of image rendering is part of the process of white balancing and colour grading.

Like a photographic negative, a raw digital image may have a wider dynamic range or colour gamut than the eventual final image format, and it preserves most of the information of the captured image. The purpose of raw image formats is to save, with minimum loss of information, data obtained from the sensor, and the conditions surrounding the capturing of the image (the metadata).

Light Developer, based on dcraw lib, supports the most common RAW formats for getting their thumbnail, previewing and developing. Supported formats:

Supported formats

*.RAW,*.RW2 from Panasonic
*.NEF, *.NRW from Nikon
*.CRW, *.CR2 from Canon
*.ORF from Olympus
*.MRW from Minota
*.RAF from Fujifilm
*.PEF, *.PTX from Pentax
*.DCR from Kodark
*.ERF from Epson
*.DNG from Adobe
*.ARW, *.SRF, *.SR2 from Sony
*.RW1 from Leica
*.BAY from Casio
*.SRW from Sumsung