Raw files turn up as jpg when editing with other software (photoshop)

Question

Raw files turn up as jpg when editing with other software (photoshop)

I recently upgraded my old MacBook Pro to High Sierra from something much older, and was used to the old iPhoto app. I used to import my images from my camera (Nikon D90) to iPhoto and then edit them in Photoshop, by chosing them and by pressing the return they automatically opened in Photoshop. If they were raw files they opened in Camera Raw in Photoshop, No problems.

With High Sierra came Photos, and when I import my raw images to Photos and try to edit them by pressing the return key they open in Photos own editing part, and when I choose edit with... and choose Photoshop, they just turn up as jpg images.

Why is this, and how do I do to get around this? Also, is there somewhere you can choose to always open images in Photoshop when pressing the return key, as it used to be?

/Fred

Posted on Jun 1, 2019 9:35 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

197,321 points

Jun 1, 2019 11:54 AM in response to oneofthosefreds

It will depend on the application you are using as the external editor, how a RAW file will be passed to the application.

When I open a RAW image in Photoshop CS6, Photos will pass it along as a JPG, when I use "Image > Edit with":
When I open a RAW file in Preview or Graphic Converter 10, or many other applications, it will be passed to Preview as a TIFF file, essentially as a RAW file.

When you get yourself the External Editors extension, you can select the format, that will be passed to the external editor. And you can also create a list of favorites for quick access to your favorite external editors.

For example, after opening external Editors from the list of editing extensions, I an select the source format and click directly my favorites:

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

197,321 points

Jun 2, 2019 12:14 AM in response to oneofthosefreds

You're welcome. 😊

I am using the external editors extension a lot. I also like its ability to replace the edited version with any image file from the disk. This is very helpful for older applications, that cannot save the edited version back to Photos. Or when the editor wants to save a gigantic TIFF file back to Photos. With the help of External Editors I can replace these gigantic files by HEIC files.

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Answer 3

Jun 2, 2019 12:24 AM in response to léonie

Yes, it's been really annoying not to be able to edit my raw files directly in Photoshop after upgrading, so this extension is really great. Only wonder why Apple removed that function, that used to be a part of iPhoto?

Seems like you're really into this, so I have to ask, in External Editor, you can choose "convert to jpg" but when you do that Photos still save the original raw file in the background right, to be able to go back to the original whenever you want. Do you know if there is anyway to competely convert the raw file to jpg, to save space. (Let's say you edited your raw file and is satisfied with it and no longer need the raw file, then it would be great to be able to save space by just have the jpg file saved in Photos.

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Answer 4

Jun 1, 2019 11:52 PM in response to léonie

Thank you for that tip, it really made my day!

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