MASTER YOUR CRAFT

Photo editors that support RAW

These apps let you edit your RAW images.

For serious digital photographers, nothing beats the RAW image format. Because it contains the unadulterated and uncompressed data recorded by a camera’s sensor, a RAW image gives you much more data to work with – which means greater control in the editing phase over factors like dynamic range, colours and noise.

Your Mac’s Photos app works with RAW files – just add one to your Photos library to use its editing tools. These photo apps let you process and edit RAW photos as well – no file conversion necessary.

Acorn

Acorn lets you tweak exposure, blacks, highlights, shadows, colour temperature and more with easy-to-use tools. It’s one of the most affordable apps for creating complex, multilayered images from your RAW files.

Adobe Lightroom

Every feature in Adobe Lightroom works with RAW images, from the easy-to-use filters to the advanced editing tool to the app’s ability to organise photos using artificial intelligence. Lightroom also integrates with Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite, a service that lets you store and access your RAW photos from your Mac, iPhone and iPad.

Affinity Photo

Affinity Photo has some of the most powerful RAW editing tools available anywhere. Its dedicated RAW workspace (called the Develop Persona) consolidates tools for making non-destructive edits to RAW images.

Luminar

Luminar’s AI-powered tools make it easy for both novices and experienced photographers to improve photos in seconds. The RAW-compatible app also uses AI for advanced edits such as portrait retouching, sky replacement and atmosphere effects.

Pixelmator Pro

Pixelmator Pro’s ‘RAW layers’ feature allows you to combine multiple RAW files and edit them simultaneously. Use the app’s Recipes to save your favourite sequence of edits and make processing multiple RAW files a snap.

RAW Power

RAW Power gives you access to the full RAW conversion engine in macOS, which means you get RAW-centric adjustment options not found elsewhere – including Noise Reduction, Black Point, Sharpen and Gamut Mapping.