Converting RAW+JPEG to JPEG only

[holmsi]

I have a Sony mirrorless camera on which I generally shoot RAW+JPEG. I then import these photos to my iPad, edit the RAWs I like and generate full res JPEGs to keep.

Over the years, I’ve accumulated a lot of RAW+JPEG images which aren’t exactly favourites, but which I’d like to keep in some form just in case. To save space, I’d like to just save a JPEG from these and bin the RAW data. I’ve seen the option to Generate RAW Previews, which I think does half of what I want to do, but is there a way to bin the RAW data afterwards?

Any input appreciated.

[Nik Bhatt]

Unfortunately, Apple does not make this easy. When you are viewing an album, you are viewing a collection of “Assets.” RAW+JPEG is represented in the photo database as a single “asset”. Apple does not provide a way for third parties to split apart an asset, while retaining the metadata etc. associated. Nor do they provide a way to delete parts of an asset.

With a fair amount of work, it might be possible to write some code that examines the asset in detail, downloads all of the pieces, and creates a new asset that has just the RAW or just the JPEG, along with any adjustments or other data. However, it’s not clear if keywords or place information etc. will also travel along with it. Assuming it could be done, the new asset would be created, and the old paired asset would be deleted.

Anyway, I have been asked for this in the past and I have it on my list, but I cannot promise anything soon.

A workaround is to export the JPEG in RAW Power, but tell it to add the exported image back to the library (this is a feature in the app already). Then delete the R+J pair. You can add the exported image to any album you wish, so you can keep them separated while you do this. You can also perform the export as a batch to do all of them at once.

Sorry I don’t have a better answer.

[Nik Bhatt]

Actually that won’t work. When given an R+J pair, RAW Power will export the RAW.

I think to do this you would need to use photos for Mac and batch export from there.

[holmsi]

Hi Nik,

Thanks for the reply, unfortunately I don’t have access to a Mac. For now, my manual workflow is just to export a new JPEG with my desired edits and delete the RAW+JPEG original. This doesn’t retain any of the album information, but its better than nothing. If there was an option to do this as a batch progress in the future that would be great.

Thanks,

[Valdo]

Hi Holmsi,
there is FileBrowserBusiness in AppStore and it’s kinda Apple Files on steroids. Integrate it into Files app, select view file extensions and you can do what you want with your any kind of files.

[Author]

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