Cannot access RAW files in Photos.app

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Level 1

25 points

Cannot access RAW files in Photos.app

I cannot access RAW image files in Photos.app. I have a bunch of RAW files from both my Olympus OM-D E-M5 and from my iPhone (I use the Halide app to take them). They are all JPG/RAW pairs.

The photos display with the little J icon in the top right corner but the "Image > Use RAW as Original" option in the menu is greyed out. I'm pretty sure I had this working in the past.

If I dig into the Photo Library with the terminal I can see that the ORF (Olympus RAW Format) and DNG (Digital Negative) files are there. I just cannot access them from Photos app.

My library is an iCloud Photo Library and on iOS if I use apps that know about RAW files, such as Darkroom, they are able to open the RAW versions. I have "Download Originals" configured on my Mac.

I'm on Mojave 10.14.6 and Photos is Version 4.0 (3461.7.140)

Posted on Sep 13, 2019 3:54 AM

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Answer 1

michaelab Author

Level 1

25 points

Sep 13, 2019 4:22 AM in response to michaelab

Here are some things I investigated:

Some things I investigated:

If I create a Smart Album with Photo is RAW as the only criterion, it only shows me a fraction of all my RAW files (170 images). Curiously, the ones that are JPG/RAW pairs show with the R icon in the top right corner but for these I cannot choose Use JPEG as original.

However, if I count the actual number of RAW image files in my photo library folder I have 1189 RAW files:

➜ ~ cd Pictures/Photos\ Library.photoslibrary

➜ Photos Library.photoslibrary find . -name "*.ORF" | wc -l

416

➜ Photos Library.photoslibrary find . -name "*.orf" | wc -l

550

➜ Photos Library.photoslibrary find . -name "*.dng" | wc -l

223

This would suggest to me that somehow the Photos database is hosed 😐

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Answer 2

markwmsn

Level 6

15,107 points

Sep 14, 2019 5:02 PM in response to michaelab

The "Use Raw as Original" option is available only when you are in "edit" mode and applies only to the photo you are currently editing.

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Answer 3

michaelab Author

Level 1

25 points

Sep 16, 2019 1:58 AM in response to markwmsn

Thanks @markwmsn! I had totally forgotten that this was the case 🤦‍♂️ What a really poor UI design though.

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Cannot access RAW files in Photos.app

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