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The Apple Support Community will permanently close on November 20, 2026. Starting today, the site will no longer accept new posts and is available in a read-only state.
You can continue to find trusted guidance and support on the official Apple Support site.
We want to thank the community members who have contributed their time and expertise to help others with their Apple products.
I converted some image files to DNG format using Lightroom. macOS Monterey can't open these files, either in Preview or using Quick Look. I have tried both lossy and lossless DNG conversion, without success.
By using Adobe tools to convert a TIFF image to a DNG, you created a martian that is unknown to the Finder — an unrecognizable image format, nor a camera RAW format ordinarily denoted by DNG. The Finder attempts to determine which camera in its camera RAW support created the DNG file and failing that, nothing appears in Finder, QuickLook , nor Preview.
If you've created DNG images from TIF to save space like I have there doesn't seem to be a CODEC or app to enable viewing of these images in Quicklook, Preview, etc. No trouble opening them in PS, LR, or the Affinity Suite just no native MacOS Viewing. The explanation in this thread makes it clear why this is the case but I was hopeful that an app like Raw Right Away might have tackled this. It doesn't.
Product: Raw Right Away
Version: 4.1.3
Build: 220
Try Adobe DNG converter and maybe also safe-boot.
https://helpx.adobe.com/camera-raw/using/adobe-dng-converter.html
SOME DNG files can be viewed in the Finder, Preview and Quick Look. Those converted by Lightroom from TIFF files cannot, in my experience.
These DNG files were converted by Lightroom from tiff files, and unfortunately, the standalone Adobe DNG converter will only convert raw files to DNG, not tiff files (or any other non-raw format).
Thanks for your reply. I will try the safe boot idea.
as for the dng converter, Lightroom is made by Adobe and they say that the code in LR is exactly the same as the code in their dng converter app
Honestly, after using Macs for 3 decades and being a co-owner of a computer graphics company, this is the first I've heard of someone trying to convert tiff files to dng files. Completely outside of my experience.
> tiff files to dng
AFAIK and please correct me if I'm wrong, .raw is very much the same as .tif. .tif might be compressed with LZW or ZIP. LZW does not work at all well with 16-bit files and often makes them larger. So if you’re going to use compression on 16-bit files, stick with ZIP.
https://havecamerawilltravel.com/photographer/tiff-image-compression/
it seems to me that since DNG is a completely open specification with specs published for everyone to see, it should be possible for Apple to produce a Quick Look plug-in that would be capable of reading the file and rendering it, if they wished to.
FWIW, I have no problem viewing .dng files in Monterey that were created with Adobe DNG Converter in the Finder, Preview or Quick Look.
It might useful in the case of a gigabytes 16 bits scan file on which you want to perform retouching and keep the live history, also the compression is very effective.
DNG files can be viewed in the Finder, Preview and Quick Look.
Well, the folly of trying to convert TIFF files into DNG files has already been covered.
Just to add, Adobe DNG Converter won't even format a TIFF file to DNG.
edit: Neither will GraphicConverter, XnView MP.
Cannot view DNG files either in preview or with Quick Look
