Panasonic Lumix RW2 files appear completely black in macOS Tahoe 26.4

neverwho wrote:

This is the same camera indeed.

Thumbnails show image properly, while trying to QuickView / Preview / import into Photomator or Photos appears completely black.

When using third party apps (Like capture1, on1, DXO, Lightroom etc.) images are completely fine: viewable and editable.

I don't know about DXO – but Adobe doesn't use the operating system's built-in Raw support, Adobe uses their own Raw support code, which gets built into Lightroom, Adobe Camera Raw, and the Digital Negative Converter. So the lists of supported cameras, and bugs, may not be the same for Adobe's applications as for Apple's ones.

Adobe – Supported Cameras

DXO – Supported Cameras & Lenses

Digital camera RAW formats supported by iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, and visionOS 26 - Apple Support

For now, my workaround is to use my CFXpress card reader and the CFXpress card as a hard drive plugging them into my MacBook and using DXO (I’m assuming other photo editing tools will do the same) to edit the RAW files.

I then export the edited files to Photos where they can be stored and used. That gets around the black image problem but I’m not sure if those JPG images are no longer nondestructive files or not but at least I can now post them to Flickr etc.

I'm assuming I can reset them back to RAW in DXO at a later date while keeping those edited files hopefully.

Don’t worry, the issue isn’t on your side. Several of us have already run into this problem something broke in Apple’s RAW framework with the 26.4 update, so this affects all Panasonic cameras.

I’ve already reported it to Apple and to Photomator as well, and hopefully the more people report it, the sooner they’ll fix it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Lumix/comments/1s6pqv8/s1rii_raws_black_in_macos_264/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/115806303681513/posts/1226419902620142/

https://www.reddit.com/r/pixelmator/comments/1s95uzi/have_tried_everything_to_have_pixelmator_pro_read/

https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOSBeta/comments/1rp81t4/tahoe_264_panasonic_raw_photo_import_problem/

Okay, I decided to download the public beta of iOS 26.5 RC (not yet gotten the RC2 yet) and there's an improvement, small but an improvement no less.

Now, when importing my photos from my S1R2, into Photos, the thumbnails still show the image but instead of them instantly turning black they are now white with a cloud icon.

I hear you say ‘that's not much of an improvement ‘ but in this case it is as I can now open the image file in Photomator (where the images opens) and edit the photos!

I'm hoping this will get better after I install the RC2 update and we get back to normal.

The Panasonic LUMIX DC-S5M2 is on the list of supported camera models for Tahoe. is that your camera model? There is no Panasonic LUMIX S5M2 listed.

Digital camera RAW formats supported by iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, and visionOS 26 - Apple Support

Have you installed the most recent update for the system? Can the Photos.app show the image files properly? Please test by importing one of the files into Photos and check, if it will open in EDIT mode.

This is the same camera indeed.

Thumbnails show image properly, while trying to QuickView / Preview / import into Photomator or Photos appears completely black.

When using third party apps (Like capture1, on1, DXO, Lightroom etc.) images are completely fine: viewable and editable.

Chose the first raw RW2 image from your DPReview link. Displays properly as a Finder icon, and in Photos app, but all black in Quick Look and Preview. After the initial successful view in Photos, the image went all black within a minute.

The camera that took that shot was using software version 0.7. Same result for RAW images produced by this camera using software v1.0 (from Photographyblog.com) at the same 6000 x 4000 pixels. The images were taken in 2023 and 2022 respectively.

Tested: macOS 26.4

Yes I too am having this issue both in iOS and macOS with my RAW files.

I've several hundreds of images that I can't edit right now: APPLE!

I have sent feedback to Apple about it but it needs fixing as quickly as possible as I not only affects Photos, but any other app that relies on Photos for the image file to edit such as Photomator.

I hope they fix it before then! Dear knows when 26.5 will come out so this bug needs sorting soon. It also affect some Fujifilm RAW (even edited RAW) files too as some of my shots from a few years ago went black.

Okay, I went out with my Lumix S1R2 to do a bit of street photography and although the shot taken were sub-par it did allow me to check out iOS 26.5 with the RAW files.

I've imported to them into Photos, as RAW files with no editing.

They opened up displaying the thumbnail on the home page (library) just fine and when clicked to open for editing in-app it didn't turn black or white but showed the image.

Now, I don't have a Mac nearby to check if that is the case too now, but there has been comments that there may still be issues but that may not be the case now.

Others could update us on that; please.

See if these RW2 files Open for you.

Panasonic Lumix DC-S5 II Sample Gallery

Now that there's been a new update to iOS and macOS, has anyone seen any improvement?

I'm going out today and will come home from a demonstration with hundreds of images so I won't know until later today, or tomorrow, before I'll know.

If you keep your Mac and i/Pad/OS device operating systems up-to-date, you will know when this issue is fixed by Apple engineers. As these are strictly fellow user supported and public communities, no one here knows when this problem with camera RAW support for Panasonic cameras will be resolved, and repetitive inquiries here are futile.

I held off replying to you this morning as my answer was going to be less polite than now.

I simply asked if anyone had anything new to add since the latest updates to the OS, which I had installed.

So, yes, I do keep my iOS and macOS up to date but I didn't have any RAW files to test due to the last batch being converted to JPG using my previous suggestioned workaround.

This is meant to be a community where we all help each other out and not one where you answer in the way you did: it was unnecessary to be so rude and unhelpful.

I do now have a supply of RAW images taken this afternoon which will take some time to process and once I have additional information to pass on, I will do so without prejudice.