Digital Photography RAW formats information

Version 0.5 (June 3rd, 2022)

with "RAW format" as subject.

This document is a work in progress, if you want to help, send me a mail!

changelog

06jun2022 : link to Sony RAW (github)

24nov2019 : updates for broken links. Added Libraw.

23May2009 : new links for MRW format, Stephane Chauveau.

1. Introduction

Most digital camera RAW formats are TIFF based but with some differences, especially to decode the Makernote entries. This document is written to describe these particularities and to gather in one place all information about the RAW file formats.

2. TIFF based file formats

Canon : see this very detailled document about CR2 and CRW
Nikon : see this document about NEF. NRW is like NEF.
Pentax : PEF. Example.
- Motorola byte ordering. 3 IFDs. The Makernote starts with "AOC". The number of entries (about 100) is at +6 offset.
Epson : ERF (Epson Raw File). Example. See ExifTool
- Motorola byte ordering. 1 subIFD with the FULL resolution image.
- The Makernote starts with "EPSON\0", then with 0x0100 (version?)
Mamiya : MEF. Example.
- Motorola byte ordering. 3 subIFDs. The 1st for the full resolution image, the 2 next ones for thumbnails.
Olympus : ORF. Example. See ExifTool
- Intel byte ordering. "RO" at offset 2 instead of 0x002a for normal TIFF.
- The Makernote starts with "OLYMP\0", then with 0x0200 (version?)
Panasonic : RW2. Example or RAW. See ExifTool
- Intel byte ordering. TIFF magic word is 0x55 instead of 0x2a. First IFD at offset 0x18 for RW2, 8 for RAW. No Makernote tag.
- full resolution image in IFD#0.
Leica : RAW. Example. http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/TagNames/Panasonic.html
- Intel byte ordering. TIFF magic word is 0x55 instead of 0x2a.
- Makernote starts with "LEICA\0", then 0x0000
Kodak : KDC. Example and DCR
- Motorola byte ordering. 1 sudIFD for the main image. No Makernote.
Sony :
- SRF, SR2, ARW: see Description of Sony RAW file formats (SRF, SR2 and ARW).
Hasselblad : 3FR. Example
- Intel byte ordering. 1 subIFD for the main image.
Leaf : MOS. Example. See ExifTool
- Motorola byte ordering. Makernote in tag 0x8606 with special format :
  each record is : "PKTS" + 0x00000001 + char_tag_name[40] + long_skipOffset.
  See Dcraw parse_mos() function.
HP

3. Non TIFF based file formats

Konica Minolta : MRW
- start with "\0MRM". See RAW formats by C. Rousseau. (French)
- See also Stephane Chauveau (2007 and here), Dalibor Jilenek, makernote and raw (with IE, 06-2005), Paul K. Hansen (2001).
Fuji : RAF
- starts with "FUJIFILMCCD-RAW ". See RAW formats by C. Rousseau. (French)
Foveon : X3F
- the file starts with "FOVb". See https://github.com/drewnoakes/metadata-extractor.
Casio: .BAY (Bayer), .RAW
- See http://www.inweb.ch/foto

4. References and links

TIFF specification
libraw
EXIF specification.
Dcraw by Dave Coffin
ExifTool by Phil Harvey
Raw Format Standards Summary, by Rags Gardner