Shooting at raw mode, appears as jpeg when transferred to computer.

[alessanoir]

I in need of serious help.

I am shooting with a canon eos 6d, on Av mode. I choose the raw mode before I started shooting, but when I transferred to my computer, all were jpeg. 

How can I solve this problem.

Thank you in advance

[Waddizzle · Accepted solution]

Of course, double check that you're shooting RAW, and only RAW. The fact that you're using Av mode should not make any difference.  Are you trying to transfer files wirelessly, or via USB? 

What type of computer are you using?  I think I've seen threads where MAC users are complaining about file sizes of their JPEGs.  Apparently, something in some Apple's software may resize the image files downward.

[TCampbell]

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@kvbarkley wrote:

No, while the RAW editing is not as pervasive as Aperture, Photos does not it "converts all RAW files to JPEG upon import ". It does lossless editing using a jpeg preview - just like Aperture.

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No, it actually does convert.  Apple provides Camera RAW updates for their OS and all the Apple apps that can do anything with photographs share that library.  This includes iPhoto, Photos, Aperture, and Finder... but I think it even extends into Pages, Keynote, and other apps that can deal with images.

Your "Photos" library is actually a folder.  If you go into the Pictures folder, highlight the "Photos Library", right-cick and select "Show Package Contents" then it'll let you descend into the folder hierarchy.  

Within this you'll find a folder named "Masters" (iPhoto called it "Originals" and it's now a symbolic link to "Masters") and this is where they store whatever file was imported from the camera.  If you imported a RAW, then this folder has a RAW in it.

However... that's not what Photos uses when editing.  If the image was a RAW then it uses it's Camera RAW support to demosaic the RAW into a JPEG image and THAT is what it displays (not the preview image -- often those are lower resolution anyway and what you'll get will be a full resolution image.)  Also, if you make any image adjustments then those adjustments are made to the JPEG copy of the image (because it never alters the original image that was imported.)

Aperture was (is?) completely different.  It also has a library concept (although you don't have to use it).  It doesn't create a copy of an image as you make adjustments... it records adjustments as meta-data (the data behind what you did -- rather than in image of the result of that operation).  When you open an image, it opens the original and the list of adjustments and rapidly applies all those adjustments to build the latest "version" of your image.  So there literally is no other copy of your image.  There is one slightly exception... which is that Aperture supports the notions of "preview" images for very rapid browsing of the library.  These images can be created at full resolution *or* at a reduced resolution.  When you rapidly skim through your projects it will use these "preview" images for performance reasons... but the moment you attempt to make any adjustment it swtiches to the real image + the applied list of adjustments (based on meta-data).

Photos (on the Mac) is a non-distructive edtior (you never lose your original data) but it operates on JPEG images which are, by definition, lossless. 

Also, I believe that if you use iCloud for storage of the photos it will only upload the converted JPEG (the RAW will remain back on whichever Mac (in case you have more than one) imported that data from the camera.

Photos on iOS is a bit different.  Apple doesn't have Camera RAW support on iOS for RAW files but it DOES know how to read the JPEG-preview image imbedded within a RAW file.  So on an iOS device you can import a RAW, but it wont know how to convert it... instead it just displays the embedded JPEG preview image.

[kvbarkley]

"Photos (on the Mac) is a non-distructive edtior (you never lose your original data) but it operates on JPEG images which are, by definition, lossless. "

This is confused, JPEG's are very lossy, that is why they get such good compression. 

[RobertTheFat]

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@kvbarkley wrote:

"Photos (on the Mac) is a non-distructive edtior (you never lose your original data) but it operates on JPEG images which are, by definition, lossless. "

This is confused, JPEG's are very lossy, that is why they get such good compression. 

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I think a better way to put it is that JPEGs can be lossy, but aren't by default.

However, there is no guarantee that the RAW-to-JPEG conversion is lossless.

[TCampbell]

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@kvbarkley wrote:

"Photos (on the Mac) is a non-distructive edtior (you never lose your original data) but it operates on JPEG images which are, by definition, lossless. "

This is confused, JPEG's are very lossy, that is why they get such good compression. 

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Apologies --  I meant to say "lossy".  JPEG is lossy.  RAW and TIFF are lossless.

The photo editing apps are non-destructive in that they treat the original image imported into the software in the same way you might think of a film negative (we never change the negative, we just change the various versions of the print.  So you can always go back to the original data source.)

RAW is non-lossy and TIFF is non-lossy (both support some level of compression.. just not "lossy" compression.  As such, they don't tend to compress nearly so well as JPEG.)

[carmelvalleyite]

I recently shot in RAW/JPeg and when I uploaded to Photos, they were all small JPeg files.  I learned on this community site that you can click on the photo, then on Edit, then right click on the photo and you have the option to revert to RAW.  Then click on Done and it changes to RAW.   If you want to go back to JPeg, do the same steps but click on change to JPeg.

[Tiffanyl2121]

Hello! I'm having an issue with the camera EOS R. I have the settings to be RAW but when I upload on the Mac and then pick which ones I want out in photos and then import into lightroom. Some of them are converted into JPEG and some of them stay RAW. How can I prevent them from doing this in the future? It makes it very hard to edit. I would like them to stay RAW

[kvbarkley]

You probably need to go directly to LightRoom and bypass Photos. If you did any editing in Photos it probably has to go to LR as a JPEG, since you can't edit a RAW file.