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Allison011501
Allison011501
Participant
November 26, 2019
Question

How to export a converted image and keep it as a RAW file

  • November 26, 2019
  • 1 reply
  • 268 views

I have a color image that I am converting to BW and making edits to. It's a RAW file and I want to keep it RAW or Original when I export it, but when I do it converts it back to color. How can I keep my changed image RAW and export it, and send it to another person for them to open and work on it. Somebody help!!

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1 reply

J
Community Expert
Jao vdLCommunity Expert
Community Expert
November 26, 2019

raw images cannot be edited. When you export a raw image from Lightroom, what you get is a raw file with a xmp sidecar file. Adobe software such as Lightroom and Photoshop camera raw will read both files and apply the same treatment to the image as Lightroom does. However, only Adobe software can understand these editing instructions. If you send these two files together to another person, they will see the image in black and white when they load it into Lightroom or Photoshop with all your edits intact, but the image will look color in Finder or Explorer or any other non-adobe raw software. You can also export as a dng file. What will happen in that case is that the raw data and the xmp sidecar will be integrated into the same file but also Lightroom will put in a jpeg preview of the image with all the edits applied. However, again only Adobe software can understand this.

Allison011501
Allison011501Author
Participant
November 27, 2019
How would you open the raw file and the xmp file if it were sent to you? You wouldn’t just click it would you??

Allison Healan Lawrence
904-445-1168
"Never, Never, Never Quit"
---Sir Winston Churchill
J
Community Expert
Jao vdLCommunity Expert
Community Expert
November 27, 2019

I would import it into Lightroom or open it with Photoshop. You could just click it if your computer is setup to open the type of raw file you clicked by default in Photoshop instead of preview or another photo app.

The dng format is nice in that it contains both the raw data and the xmp metadata (which is the recipe on how to develop the image from the raw data) inside a single container and you don't have to keep track of the xmp file. You just have to make sure your collaborator uses Adobe software to open. 

 

This is both the great thing about working with raw files and the problem. It is great in that it always retains the highest quality data because all edits are always non-destructive (i.e. the raw data never gets touched by the raw conversion software) until you render it into a standard file format such as jpeg and tiff. As soon as you do that all edits are baked in and you can no longer go back on them. It also means though that the develop recipe you develop in apps such as Lightroom is specific to the raw conversion software you use and will only work there. Develop settings for Lightroom do not work in Capture 1 or in Apple's photos software for example. So if you stay raw you need to specify which software to open it in if you exchange files.

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