Photos for Mac: Importing Raw and JPEG pairs, Catalina Version
When we shoot RAW&JPEG pairs and import them directly to Photos, there is no option to import only the RAW files or the JPEG files. Photos will import both files and does us not allow us to remove either component. If you only want one of the components in your library, it will be easier to import selectively, instead of having to split the pairs after import:
Seperating the pairs when importing:
To prevent Photos from importing both components of the pair, you could use Image Capture to import your image files from the camera to Photos selectively. The column View in Image Capture lets you sort the image files by the kind and this way you can easily select only the RAW files for importing to Photos (or only the JPEGS).
- Connect your camera to a USB port or insert a card into the card reader and launch Image Capture.
- Just click the title of the column with "Kind" to sort by the kind.
- And set "Import to" at the bottom of the panel to "Photos":
The screenshot below shows, how I can select the CR2 files from my Canon camera after sorting by kind in Image Capture.
When importing the pairs directly into Photos:
Photos will import both files and does us not allow us to remove either component. The Raw & JPEG pairs will be stacked as one photo and Photos will use the JPEG file as the original by default.
We can see which photo is currently the original, if we enable the badge overly for the file type:
- In the menu View > Metadata enable "File Type". You will see a badge on the thumbnail, either "J" or "R", depending in the format of the current original file.
- We can switch between the originals for selected images using the Image menu "Image > Use RAW as Original". In Catalina this can be done for a batch of photos at once. Changes to the handling of RAW&JPEG pairs - Apple Community
- We can compare the Original and the JPEG version, if we duplicate the stacked photo and switch one copy to Raw and one copy to JPEG as the original. This will not duplicate the originals, just the edited versions.
- To remove either the RAW or the JPEG component you have to export the pair with"File > export > Export unmodified original", delete it from the library, then reimport only the component you want to keep in your library. It will be a lot of work, because you also have to save the adjustments and the metadata before deleting the pair. See this user tip: Deleting RAW files from RAW&JPEG pair… - Apple Community
- To reimport the pair of RAW&JPEG stacked as one image file, you have first to remove the remaining photo from Photos, even from Recently Deleted, then import the pair of photos together.