I’m having an annoying issue with Apple Photos. I’m using a Fuji X-T5 and an up-to-date Ventura installed on an M1 MBP. Despite being listed in the System as a supported RAW format, Photos refuses to display - or allow editing of - any RAW images from the X-T5. QuickLook also doesn’t work.
On the other hand, Photomator, Capture One, Photoshop, Affinity Photo 2 and Pixelmator Pro all happily open the RAW image. This simply reaffirms my belief that Photos is horribly bad. I only use it for syncing photos across devices and if I can’t even get the images into it it’s even more worthless.
I’m curious if anyone is using an X-T5 and is able to import into Apple Photos.
Apple lists the cameras where it supports raw images.
I didn’t look closely, but I don’t see that camera listed there. It also says
Support for additional RAW formats is added over time. This list is current as of 28 September 2021 and reflects compatibility with the latest versions of iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and macOS Big Sur.
So obviously they haven’t added anything in a couple of years.
The image on the left is a jpeg imported via the Fuji X app but the RAWs are blank. Still seems a little odd all the other apps have no trouble handling them.
David has it right: if you’re shooting Compressed Raw, Apple Photos can’t read it. That’s what I see, too. However, RAW Power and Photomator can both read Fuji compressed formats if you want to stick with it. (I normally shoot uncompressed raw.)
Out of curiosity, do you know how they compress the RAW file? Is it the same as the uncompressed file, but with a standard compression wrapper (e.g. gzip, bzip2 or xz)? Or does it use a proprietary compression algorithm?
If it’s the former, then you may be able to just decompress the RAW file before importing it to Photos.
I think it’s a proprietary compression algorithm, but I’m not 100% sure. Nik Bhatt (@Nik_Bhatt) at Gentlemen Coders wrote a good blog post (in 2021!) about the challenges of adding raw support to RAW Power, and although he mentions compressed raws (they were the impetus), the post doesn’t go into detail about them.
Quite proprietary. After a bit of searching, I found an article describing it:
But you don’t need to roll your own decompression utility. It appears that Fuji distributes a converter you can download. Compatible with macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) through 13 (Ventura):
A fellow X-T5 owner here, but I see others have answered before me. I’ve only ever used Capture One with the images. I came to the conclusion years ago that Photos was really best used as a companion app to the iPhone camera, Ive never used it with my real kit.
Exactly my position. I use Capture One for camera images (although the ongoing costs having me seeking alternatives) and Apple Photos is essentially an app which syncs to my Mac, iPad, iPhone and the family.
Interesting article, thanks. I’ve not used Raw Power but will download the trial and take a look.
I was curious he said Pixelmator used the Apple RAW engine as both Photomator and Pixelmator Pro are opening the RAW images fine. Perhaps since the blog post was written they’ve also decided to roll their own solution so as not to be reliant on Apple.
Given how long Fujifilm compressed RAW has been out now, and how many third party apps support it, it’s embarrassing that Apple still doesn’t handle them properly in Photos. If they’re not going to offer a professional photo app then the one they do offer, which is the canonical app for managing the system photo library, should be able to do the basics (eg browsing photos).
