Thanks for the video! 2019 photos seems to have made things a lot more frustrating by changing the names of the original raw files :/ but I was still able to find them all. Thank you!
I created a smart album that contained all RAW files and duplicated to a new finder folder. Still no way I know of to extract them from the Photos master in a large batch for deletion and storage savings after migrating and backing up.
OMG. I can't thank you enough. I've struggle such a long time trying to import Raw data to lightroom. I just can't find my photos. It is such a cumbersome process though. Having to copy them outside of iPhoto ... my already don't have enough space on my mac book and now have to double my raw file. It sucks. Why can't they make it easier.
It doesn't work for me. My Photos app version is 1.5 (370.42.0) and Digital Camera RAW 6.21 (879), Digital Camera RAW Support 6210 (256). I have a Nikon dslr with fole extension NEF. Photos while I Click edit shows me at the top of the screnn (edited photo) a RAW indicator however when I click Image from top menu USE RAW as Original is still grayed out. Can't understand why. My operating system is ELCapitan 10.11.6
Hi Tom. I just finished watching a couple of your videos regarding working with RAW images inPhotos. I was hoping your excellent suggestions would help but I am still having difficulties. I just downloaded jpeg +raw photos from my Olympus Tough TG-6. When I select ‘Use raw as the original’ on my iMac (Mac OS Monterey), a message appears on the screen ‘Switching raw/jpg originals’. Not only does nothing appear to happen after several minutes, but the computer freezes and I am forced to restart it. Any thoughts? Thanks. Glenn Feroli
Sorry I haven’t see that one before. If you’re doing more than one at a time, maybe just try choosing one photo and then Image/Use Raw as Original. Maybe doing them in bulk is a problem?
@@tomn68 Thanks Tom. Thinking along the same lines as you mention, I only tried it with one photo. No luck. I’ll try throwing it out to the Apple community.
💥💥Greatly appreciated, thank you. 5:50 WOW…. Is that a painfully large amount of work to grab a Raw and edit it in LR. Imagine having to pick and choose and sort through dozens of images to work on..?
Thanks for the video. Unfortunately, I tried to copy a single raw file to my desktop as you showed and my Mac seems to start the process (shows the little copy window) but nothing happens. Can someone help me with that problem?
I recently took shots on RAW only and then when importing to max photos all I got was grey squares. I could not open the images at all as it said that such files were not supported. Is there anyway to retrieve my raw only shots into my Mac photos?
Hi Sunny. Do you have the images still on your camera's memory card? If so, you might want to first start by connecting your camera to your mac via USB and see if the memory card mounts on your desktop or available in the Finder. Then I would probably find your photos on the card and copy them to your mac as a backup just in case of mistakenly deleting them or formatting the card. Then I would check to see if there's any updates that should be installed for your Mac and the photos app. If the RAW file format of your camera is not supported, it could be because the camera is newer and the Photos app is older. Apple adds support for RAW file formats as they come out but only for newer OS's and newer versions of Photos. Could be your using an older OS that isn't getting updates for newer RAW file formats. Were you only shooting in RAW or RAW+JPEG. If RAW only and if you have the latest (or one version back) of the macOS then your best option might be to use your Cameras RAW software to import and process the RAW into JPEG and then import the JPEGs to Photos. Not ideal but an option if the goal is to just get JPEGs into Photos. I would probably start with googling your camera model & Mac Catalina (or whatever your using) to see if others have this problem with your camera or if there's some update out there for your camera or Mac. Lastly, there's a free RAW converter that converts various RAW formats into JPEG/TIFFS. However they convert to JPEG one at at time online. www.onlineconverter.com/image I'm sure there's other converts as well if you don't have photoshop which has a free Camera RAW app for processing RAW files.
Yeah I'm not really sure of an easy way to do that. I subscribe to icloud photos so all get stored in the cloud until I need to edit... that way locally I only have a thumbnail until viewed and the RAWs aren't stored locally.
@@Miguel-cq1ms Yeah there's not many options for managing them. I have mine setup to Optimize Mac Storage. Now I could be wrong on how this works but it seems by looking in my photos library I still the JPEG and the CR2 RAW files. I THINK this is because I have enough space on my mac. If I was low on space, I think then it offloads masters and just leaves thumbnails.
I am having a problem. I have the raw files in photos in mac, when I click on any raw picture/video to enlarge it, a triangle with ! sign shows stating at error. I cannot even copy the image to the desktop. Yet it states the picture is a cr2 raw file. I am scared I've just lost the pictures and videos and all those are just thumbnails because I couldn't even find a photo library nor any files for the pictures. I don't recall deleting anything so I'm honestly stuck not knowing what to do with them now!
Could be that you have iCloud Photos enabled and in Photos/Preferences/iCloud you might have Optimize for Mac Storage. When this is enabled, it stores your original full images in icloud and only retains a thumbnail jpg on your Mac. When you go to open and edit an image in Photos, it pulls the original down from the icloud servers. If it's not that, then could be corruption of the photos library database or it's missing all of those photos. If you are in Photos and select an image and then do File/Export/Unmodified Original... if you get the photo exported, then they are either locally on your mac or it was pulled down from icloud servers. If you don't get the correct full image exported, then it seems they are missing or the thumbnail in Photos is unlinked from the actual image file. In that case you might want to google how to repair your photos library (depends on the OS). But definitely backup before doing that. Good luck.
Mol B Well, if you only shoot RAW and that's how you're camera is setup, the Photos app will import those images and you can edit them in the Photos app. If you are looking to edit in RAWi another app, you can pick up an app that has a Photos extension which lets you edit in a other tool it saves back to your Photos library. Otherwise you'll probably want to export original from photos app from the file menu and gen open it in photoshop, etc. is that what you mean?
+Tom Nash Yeh thank you!! it's just that the actual photos library, although saying they're raw, will then open them as full jpeg when I export them to another editing programme. I can always just copy them from the masters folder though so thanks😊
When you go to export, I believe that you have to export "Unmodified Original". This will export the RAW and JPEG (if you have one). If you edit the RAW and try to export it using the first option in that menu (From file menu), it will process the RAW to generate a JPEG. Hope that helps.
What are you seeing when you do a show package contents? Are there a bunch of folders or nothing at all? You might also want to check that there's not another photo library file. For example at one point I created a new library that's empty. One way to check that you are looking at the correct one is to go into the Photos app and then go to the Photos menu and choose Preferences. Under General at the top you will see the library that is in use (this is because if you wanted to you could have multiple library and switch between them). It will show you where the library is located and its name. If you click Show in Finder, it will take you directly there. Give that a try.
It's possible that the OS version you are using does not support your camera and it's RAW format. For example I think I see your camera in this list on the Sierra list of cameras supported. support.apple.com/en-us/HT207049 But I don't know when they added it. I see an Alpha 6000 listed in Yosemite list but not 6300. Be sure you have the latest updates installed on your OS because they add new cameras a few times a year. One way to see what's going on might be to mount your camera so you can open the memory card, go find your photos and first make sure there's ARW files there. (if not maybe your camera is not set up to shoot RAW+JPEG. Then grab one of those files and drag to your desktop. Next open Photos app, click on All Photos (in the album section) and then drag your file and drop it in the list of photos. It should import (never tried with RAW but with JPEG it will import this way). Otherwise, choose File/Import and try to import it. See if you get an error and see if it lets you even select that file type. Hope that helps.
To be sure what you can do is look inside your photos library in Masters and see if there are any RAW image files in there. If you look at the video starting around 2:00, I show you how to peak inside the Library file where all of your photos are stored. Careful not to delete anything... since this can potentially mess up your library. Hope that helps.
My guess is that Photos or your version of Photos/MacOS, doesn't like or for some reason support your RAW format from your camera. Keep in mind that Apple adds support for cameras and their RAW formats from time to time. If you're using an older OS, then it might not support your camera. YOu can find a list of cameras supported by mojave here... support.apple.com/en-gb/HT208967 But you also might want to try a littl test by plugging in your camera and mounting it as a drive so you can open your card and pull out some RAW images onto your desktop. Then in photos use the File/import command to see if it will import it. If it won't, my guess is that your camera isn't supported by the OS/version of Photos that you have.
@@tomn68 Thank you for the reply. I discovered that I had some how created a new Photos Library with a weird name. I don't know how but I eventually found it under "Pictures" then I went to "Show Package Contents" then "Masters" etc. Thank you for responding and creating this video because it helped me understand.
This video was created in 2016 and I'm currently running Mojave and not Catalina but my RAW images previously imported are still in my library/masters. However I'm now also using iCloud Photos and from what I understand/read, it's suppose to upload RAQ to icloud and not store them locally since I have the Optimize Mac Storage enabled. I would have thought that would have not only uploaded my previous RAW images but also remove them locally although they sure seem to still be there and w/o the little arrow icon to indicate that they would be downloaded when accessed. I'm not sure however if Catalina handles all of this differently.
Thanks for the video! 2019 photos seems to have made things a lot more frustrating by changing the names of the original raw files :/ but I was still able to find them all. Thank you!
this video is great. SoOO helpful and been searching all over to learn how to get DNG/RAW pics out of Photos into Capture 1...thanks
You're welcome!
Thank you! This video answers my questions exactly.
Glad I could help
I created a smart album that contained all RAW files and duplicated to a new finder folder. Still no way I know of to extract them from the Photos master in a large batch for deletion and storage savings after migrating and backing up.
OMG. I can't thank you enough. I've struggle such a long time trying to import Raw data to lightroom. I just can't find my photos. It is such a cumbersome process though. Having to copy them outside of iPhoto ... my already don't have enough space on my mac book and now have to double my raw file. It sucks. Why can't they make it easier.
agreed!!!!!!!!!!
I did everything and it said, "Cannot perform this action because RAW is not supported"
Is this something from the camera end? or a computer problem?
Audrey Bradford hi Audrey. At what point are you getting this message?
Very Helpful! Thx!
It doesn't work for me. My Photos app version is 1.5 (370.42.0) and Digital Camera RAW 6.21 (879), Digital Camera RAW Support 6210 (256). I have a Nikon dslr with fole extension NEF. Photos while I Click edit shows me at the top of the screnn (edited photo) a RAW indicator however when I click Image from top menu USE RAW as Original is still grayed out. Can't understand why. My operating system is ELCapitan 10.11.6
Hi Tom. I just finished watching a couple of your videos regarding working with RAW images inPhotos. I was hoping your excellent suggestions would help but I am still having difficulties. I just downloaded jpeg +raw photos from my Olympus Tough TG-6. When I select ‘Use raw as the original’ on my iMac (Mac OS Monterey), a message appears on the screen ‘Switching raw/jpg originals’. Not only does nothing appear to happen after several minutes, but the computer freezes and I am forced to restart it. Any thoughts?
Thanks. Glenn Feroli
Sorry I haven’t see that one before. If you’re doing more than one at a time, maybe just try choosing one photo and then Image/Use Raw as Original. Maybe doing them in bulk is a problem?
@@tomn68 Thanks Tom. Thinking along the same lines as you mention, I only tried it with one photo. No luck. I’ll try throwing it out to the Apple community.
@@glennferoli5101 Hi Glenn, same thing happens to me. Have you found any solutions yet?
💥💥Greatly appreciated, thank you. 5:50 WOW…. Is that a painfully large amount of work to grab a Raw and edit it in LR. Imagine having to pick and choose and sort through dozens of images to work on..?
You saved me!!!! Thanks a lot!!
You're welcome!
Thanks for the video. Unfortunately, I tried to copy a single raw file to my desktop as you showed and my Mac seems to start the process (shows the little copy window) but nothing happens. Can someone help me with that problem?
hello! thanks for the info, but what if there's no "Masters" folder?
THIS!
I recently took shots on RAW only and then when importing to max photos all I got was grey squares. I could not open the images at all as it said that such files were not supported. Is there anyway to retrieve my raw only shots into my Mac photos?
Hi Sunny. Do you have the images still on your camera's memory card? If so, you might want to first start by connecting your camera to your mac via USB and see if the memory card mounts on your desktop or available in the Finder. Then I would probably find your photos on the card and copy them to your mac as a backup just in case of mistakenly deleting them or formatting the card.
Then I would check to see if there's any updates that should be installed for your Mac and the photos app. If the RAW file format of your camera is not supported, it could be because the camera is newer and the Photos app is older. Apple adds support for RAW file formats as they come out but only for newer OS's and newer versions of Photos. Could be your using an older OS that isn't getting updates for newer RAW file formats.
Were you only shooting in RAW or RAW+JPEG. If RAW only and if you have the latest (or one version back) of the macOS then your best option might be to use your Cameras RAW software to import and process the RAW into JPEG and then import the JPEGs to Photos. Not ideal but an option if the goal is to just get JPEGs into Photos.
I would probably start with googling your camera model & Mac Catalina (or whatever your using) to see if others have this problem with your camera or if there's some update out there for your camera or Mac.
Lastly, there's a free RAW converter that converts various RAW formats into JPEG/TIFFS. However they convert to JPEG one at at time online. www.onlineconverter.com/image I'm sure there's other converts as well if you don't have photoshop which has a free Camera RAW app for processing RAW files.
@@tomn68 thanks for your reply. Some success using Adobe converter. Think I’ll stick with taking shots on jpeg only in future to avoid this hassle
Is it possible to delete the raw file after processing in order to save space? Or perhaps to back them up separately?
Yeah I'm not really sure of an easy way to do that. I subscribe to icloud photos so all get stored in the cloud until I need to edit... that way locally I only have a thumbnail until viewed and the RAWs aren't stored locally.
@@tomn68 I also do that with iCloud, but you can't assign a space limit for local storage or delete that file from your Mac after editing.
@@Miguel-cq1ms Yeah there's not many options for managing them. I have mine setup to Optimize Mac Storage. Now I could be wrong on how this works but it seems by looking in my photos library I still the JPEG and the CR2 RAW files. I THINK this is because I have enough space on my mac. If I was low on space, I think then it offloads masters and just leaves thumbnails.
OMG THANK YOU SO MUCHH. it saved my life
I am having a problem. I have the raw files in photos in mac, when I click on any raw picture/video to enlarge it, a triangle with ! sign shows stating at error. I cannot even copy the image to the desktop. Yet it states the picture is a cr2 raw file. I am scared I've just lost the pictures and videos and all those are just thumbnails because I couldn't even find a photo library nor any files for the pictures. I don't recall deleting anything so I'm honestly stuck not knowing what to do with them now!
Could be that you have iCloud Photos enabled and in Photos/Preferences/iCloud you might have Optimize for Mac Storage. When this is enabled, it stores your original full images in icloud and only retains a thumbnail jpg on your Mac. When you go to open and edit an image in Photos, it pulls the original down from the icloud servers. If it's not that, then could be corruption of the photos library database or it's missing all of those photos. If you are in Photos and select an image and then do File/Export/Unmodified Original... if you get the photo exported, then they are either locally on your mac or it was pulled down from icloud servers. If you don't get the correct full image exported, then it seems they are missing or the thumbnail in Photos is unlinked from the actual image file. In that case you might want to google how to repair your photos library (depends on the OS). But definitely backup before doing that. Good luck.
What do you suggest if I ONLY shoot in RAW? Will I still be able to obtain the Raw and edit in another programme?
Mol B Well, if you only shoot RAW and that's how you're camera is setup, the Photos app will import those images and you can edit them in the Photos app. If you are looking to edit in RAWi another app, you can pick up an app that has a Photos extension which lets you edit in a other tool it saves back to your Photos library. Otherwise you'll probably want to export original from photos app from the file menu and gen open it in photoshop, etc. is that what you mean?
+Tom Nash Yeh thank you!! it's just that the actual photos library, although saying they're raw, will then open them as full jpeg when I export them to another editing programme.
I can always just copy them from the masters folder though so thanks😊
When you go to export, I believe that you have to export "Unmodified Original". This will export the RAW and JPEG (if you have one). If you edit the RAW and try to export it using the first option in that menu (From file menu), it will process the RAW to generate a JPEG. Hope that helps.
Thank you, thank you!!
You're Welcome!
Hi, when i click 'show package contents', im unable to see any files at all. Do you happen to know why? :/ thanks!
What are you seeing when you do a show package contents? Are there a bunch of folders or nothing at all? You might also want to check that there's not another photo library file. For example at one point I created a new library that's empty. One way to check that you are looking at the correct one is to go into the Photos app and then go to the Photos menu and choose Preferences. Under General at the top you will see the library that is in use (this is because if you wanted to you could have multiple library and switch between them). It will show you where the library is located and its name. If you click Show in Finder, it will take you directly there. Give that a try.
You saved my day!!! Thanks :)
Cathie Youmans Glad I could help.
Glad I could help!
Me too
Hi How do I upload ARW files? It seems as only the JPG files are uploading. I'm using a Sony A6300 camera with MAC. Thanks
It's possible that the OS version you are using does not support your camera and it's RAW format. For example I think I see your camera in this list on the Sierra list of cameras supported.
support.apple.com/en-us/HT207049
But I don't know when they added it. I see an Alpha 6000 listed in Yosemite list but not 6300. Be sure you have the latest updates installed on your OS because they add new cameras a few times a year.
One way to see what's going on might be to mount your camera so you can open the memory card, go find your photos and first make sure there's ARW files there. (if not maybe your camera is not set up to shoot RAW+JPEG. Then grab one of those files and drag to your desktop. Next open Photos app, click on All Photos (in the album section) and then drag your file and drop it in the list of photos. It should import (never tried with RAW but with JPEG it will import this way). Otherwise, choose File/Import and try to import it. See if you get an error and see if it lets you even select that file type. Hope that helps.
Thanks, this was very helpful
Diane Harper your welcome
In my pictures doesn't show the square that shows if is raw how can I be sure
To be sure what you can do is look inside your photos library in Masters and see if there are any RAW image files in there. If you look at the video starting around 2:00, I show you how to peak inside the Library file where all of your photos are stored. Careful not to delete anything... since this can potentially mess up your library. Hope that helps.
thank you
Nice walkthrough but dude you need to speed things up! :))
I should in raw and jpeg and imported the images and can't find the raw images no mater what I freaking do!
My guess is that Photos or your version of Photos/MacOS, doesn't like or for some reason support your RAW format from your camera. Keep in mind that Apple adds support for cameras and their RAW formats from time to time. If you're using an older OS, then it might not support your camera. YOu can find a list of cameras supported by mojave here... support.apple.com/en-gb/HT208967 But you also might want to try a littl test by plugging in your camera and mounting it as a drive so you can open your card and pull out some RAW images onto your desktop. Then in photos use the File/import command to see if it will import it. If it won't, my guess is that your camera isn't supported by the OS/version of Photos that you have.
@@tomn68 Thank you for the reply. I discovered that I had some how created a new Photos Library with a weird name. I don't know how but I eventually found it under "Pictures" then I went to "Show Package Contents" then "Masters" etc. Thank you for responding and creating this video because it helped me understand.
Is it just me or is the whole thumbnail situation a pain in the a*$.
Why is no one complaining about this horrible filing system?
Thanks for the video but this didn't help me at ALL
Sorry
@@tomn68 You are good. This is helpful to someone. I appreciate you taking the time to make the video!!!
No longer true....
This video was created in 2016 and I'm currently running Mojave and not Catalina but my RAW images previously imported are still in my library/masters. However I'm now also using iCloud Photos and from what I understand/read, it's suppose to upload RAQ to icloud and not store them locally since I have the Optimize Mac Storage enabled. I would have thought that would have not only uploaded my previous RAW images but also remove them locally although they sure seem to still be there and w/o the little arrow icon to indicate that they would be downloaded when accessed.
I'm not sure however if Catalina handles all of this differently.