Exporting RAW images in Aperture

RAW is not an image file format. It describes a family of proprietary sensor data file formats. All RAW files must be converted to an image file format in order for the data to be displayed as an image.

JPG was developed for the Web. It works great -- for images that will be displayed on computer screens and not enlarged (or printed).

TIFF is an excellent source for images that will be printed or enlarged. It is the de facto standard for loss-less image files.

Aperture allows you to export your RAW file (unchanged from import), or to create a new file using whatever file format and parameters you set. I create new files only when I need to share the file or use it in another program.

HTH.

Yes use Tiff. But technically the tif is changed from the raw, even with out further changes in AP. Export master keeps the Raw unchanged. Cheers

Export Master

When I do it, I export to Desktop and I get a folder on my Desktop. The folder has the name of the Project and inside the folder is the exported master(s). These file(s) in folder are .nef files in my case because I have a Nikon Camera.

Forgot to add. the file is the original nef just as it was imported from my camera to Aperture.ie, no edits.

Message was edited by: bobwild

delete this reply

Why?

I would select export version, then TIFF, right? If I select master wouldn't that export the unedited image instead of the edited version that I want?

Exactly, if you export the master, you will export the original, unmodified master image file.

To export - lossless - a high quality edited version, a tiff image would be the best you can do; tiff is a lossless image format, as Kirby Krieger explained. You cannot export a version as raw, since raw is depending on the camera.

Yes, export TIFF.

Your Images are not RAW.

RAW describes a family of proprietary sensor data file formats. Your files may (or may not) be RAW. No images are RAW.

You import RAW files, and Aperture does two things:

- it either puts the RAW file in the Library, or it makes a note of where the RAW file is on your system, and

- it converts the RAW file to an image format file, and displays this file to you as, in Aperture-speak, a Version.

Aperture never alters or overwrites your Master file. (Well, you can make it, but you have to go out of your way to do so.)

In Aperture you "adjust" your Images. Your adjustments are saved as a text file of instructions. These instructions are applied on-the-fly to produce the Versions you see. (Additionally, Aperture usually saves an image-format file of your Versions in order to facilitate user interaction. These image-format files are called Previews. While they are an important part of Aperture, they can be ignored in this discussion.)

So your Images in Aperture consist of a (often but not necessarily RAW-format) Master (file) and a text-format Version (file).

Think of the RAW file as your digital negative, and the Version as a recipe for, in your digital darkroom, making the Image you have developed by applying Aperture's adjustments.

If you want to have an image-format file of an adjusted Image to use outside of Aperture, you must create one. You do so by exporting your Version. You set the file format, and the parameters available when using that format, in an Image Export Preset. The Preset is used to create this file.

If you want an image-format file of an unadjusted Version, you must select a Version without adjustments. (You can easily create one by "Photos➞New Version from Master", or by selecting an existing Version and removing all adjustments, "Photos➞Reset all adjustments".) Once you have selected a Version without adjustments, export it. You select the Image Export Preset, and thus the image format and its parameters, that is used to create this file.

If you want a copy of the file you imported (in your case, a RAW-format file), select any Version based on that Master and use "File➞Export➞Master". When you export a Master, you don't select a file format. The Master file is copied, unchanged, and thus in whatever file format it was when you imported it.

Which of the above meets your needs depends very much on what your needs are. But you are in essense correct: exporting Master will give you a RAW-format file (since you imported RAW-format files), exporting the Version will give you a file of whatever format you set in your Image Export Preset.

Message was edited by: Kirby Krieger -- attempts at clarity.

Emphasis mine:

miricle04 wrote:

I want to save all the information and detail without compression. So if I decide to edit them in the future I can.

The only way to "save all the information and detail" is to save the unedited original RAW file, not a TIFF file which (although a lossless file type) must be permanently converted from RAW by Aperture before it can be saved as TIFF. A TIFF file can not be as extensively edited as a RAW file can. TIFF saves are however totally appropriate for exporting files that have been edited.

"In the future" you may have superior RAW conversion algorithms available. In fact today your camera vendor's conversion routine (e.g. Nikon NX2) is certainly different and may appear visibly superior for most folks to the RAW conversions performed by Aperture or by Adobe.

Best IMO for lots of reasons is to save originals before doing anything to them, especially before letting any images management application like (Aperture, LR, NX2, etc.) have its way with the original RAW files.

Easy-peasy and logical: just back up and archive the camera card data on external HDD prior to doing anything else.

Using Aperture and saving a Master (the alternative method mentioned by others above) also works. However it provides myriad opportunities for operator error to corrupt the original and also for Aperture anomalies to corrupt the original. Not good, and we see such corruptions reported here all the time.

HTH

-Allen Wicks

Thank you. That is very helpful (or at least confirmed my fears for files I thought I was archiving in Aperture) and appears more accurate than the other responses.

@Kirby!

Finally, someone who can actually answer a fundamental question in regards to managing RAW data files back out of Aperture. I have been trying to understand how to for quite a while, with no one having enough depth knowledge in order to be able to explain it well enough for advance users and or basic users for that matter, to be able to find a way to migrate out of Aperture with their original RAW files!

Congratulations and thanks!

Godefroy, Montreal, QC, Canada