Convert camera RAW files, CR2, NEF, ARW, DNG and more, to JPG in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server.
Accepts CR2, CR3, NEF, ARW, DNG, RAF, RW2, ORF, and 20+ more. Exports JPG, PNG, SVG.
Open the editor and drop in a RAW file from Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fuji, and most other cameras.
The conversion runs inside your browser tab. Your file never touches a server, so there is nothing to leak, cache, or delete later.
The RAW is decoded to a viewable image right away. Export JPG, or take it further with PNG and SVG.
It opens in the full editor, so you can push contrast, add grain, or run a halftone pass on the RAW before exporting.
A RAW file is not an image. It is a dump of the sensor's readings, one brightness value per photosite, along with the metadata needed to interpret them. Turning that into a picture means demosaicing, white balancing, applying a tone curve and converting to a colour space, and every one of those steps involves a decision. That is why the same RAW file looks different in different software, and why converting RAW to JPG is a development process rather than a format change.
Almost every camera sensor has a colour filter array over it, most commonly a Bayer pattern of alternating red, green and blue filters in a grid that is half green, because the eye is most sensitive to green.
That means each photosite records only one colour channel. A twenty four megapixel sensor does not capture twenty four million full-colour pixels; it captures twenty four million single-channel samples, and the other two channels at every position are reconstructed by interpolating from the neighbours. That reconstruction is demosaicing, and different algorithms trade sharpness against colour artefacts around fine detail.
Fuji's X-Trans sensors use a different, larger filter pattern and need their own demosaicing approach, which is why some converters handle Fuji files noticeably worse than Bayer files.
A RAW file typically holds twelve or fourteen bits per channel, which is four thousand to sixteen thousand levels. A JPG holds eight, which is two hundred and fifty six.
That extra headroom is why you can recover a blown sky or lift a black shadow in RAW and cannot in JPG. Once converted, those recoveries are gone permanently, because the data that made them possible has been discarded.
So the order of operations matters. Do the exposure, white balance, highlight and shadow work while the file is still RAW, then convert. Converting first and correcting afterwards throws away the latitude and produces banding in any area you push hard.
RAW is not one format. Every manufacturer has its own, and several have more than one. Canon's CR2 and CR3, Nikon's NEF, Sony's ARW, Fujifilm's RAF, Olympus and OM System's ORF, Panasonic's RW2, Pentax's PEF, Leica's DNG and RWL, and medium format files from Hasselblad and Phase One.
Adobe's DNG was an attempt to standardise this and is supported directly, but most cameras still write their own format, and each one needs its own parser for the sensor layout, the black level, the colour matrix and the compression scheme.
Bitgrain decodes around thirty of these in the browser, which means the file is developed on your own machine rather than uploaded to a service.
Because the conversion opens in the editor rather than a standalone converter, the development stage is available rather than hidden behind a default.
Set white balance and exposure first, then recover highlights and lift shadows, then grade. Thirty eight film and cinematic LUTs cover the common references, and grain, haze and bloom sit alongside them.
If the shoot is large, batch mode applies one development and effect chain across the whole set and returns a ZIP, which is considerably faster than opening each file. And if the destination is print rather than screen, the same file can go out as a halftone or riso separation rather than a JPG.
RAW data has no tone curve applied. The contrast, saturation and sharpening you see in an out-of-camera JPEG are processing the camera applies after reading the sensor. Developing the RAW is where you apply your own version of that.
Before, always. RAW holds twelve to fourteen bits per channel against JPG's eight, so highlight and shadow recovery only works while the file is still RAW. After conversion that latitude is gone.
Around thirty, including Canon CR2 and CR3, Nikon NEF, Sony ARW, Fujifilm RAF, Olympus ORF, Panasonic RW2, Pentax PEF, Adobe DNG, and medium format files from Hasselblad and Phase One.
Over 30, including Canon CR2 and CR3, Nikon NEF, Sony ARW, Adobe DNG, Fujifilm RAF, Panasonic RW2, Olympus ORF, and Pentax PEF.
No. RAW decoding runs in your browser, so large camera files never get sent anywhere.
Yes. Converting and exporting a standard JPG is free with no account.