What are RAW photos?
RAW is a special image format that contains uncompressed data captured by your camera sensor and, because of that, enables a huge amount of editing flexibility at the cost of larger file sizes.
Most camera manufacturers nowadays have their own proprietary RAW formats, which also differ slightly between different camera models from the same brand. That's why RAW format support is generally handled on a per-device basis.
Does Photomator / Pixelmator Pro support RAW photos from my device?
Photomator and Pixelmator Pro both use Apple's native RAW processing engine. It's the same one used in native Apple apps like Photos and Preview, so the quickest way to make sure if your RAW photos will work is to simply check if they open fine in one of these apps!
Apple also provides extensive lists of all the RAW formats supported in each macOS & iOS version. You can find them here:
macOS Sonoma / iOS 17
Please note that Apple regularly expands their RAW support through background updates, and support for specific formats can sometimes be downloaded on-demand. This means that certain RAW formats could be reported as unsupported during the first attempt to open them while macOS / iOS downloads RAW support in the background.
On Mac, you can see what RAW formats are supported locally by your system by opening the System Information app and going to Software > Raw Support.
If you are missing support for certain RAW formats listed in Apple's documentation, the fastest way to have your device download all RAW-related support is to make sure it is plugged in to power and connected to Wi-Fi. For more information, check out Apple's support article on background updates here.
What if the RAW format from my device isn't supported?
If you have a new camera that isn't supported yet, hang in there! Apple regularly expands their RAW support through software updates. We're also working on adding supplementary RAW support in the future ourselves, so if you have an unsupported camera, feel free to let us know and share a sample RAW photo by filling out this form.
And while you're waiting for full support, you can still edit unsupported RAW photos by converting them to DNG files. DNG is an open standard digital negative format that is supported in Pixelmator Pro and Photomator. Converting a RAW file to DNG can be done via this DNG converter. If you have issues opening and editing DNG files, please make sure that your DNG converter is up-to-date.
How does RAW + JPEG editing work?
Some cameras allow you to shoot photos in both RAW and JPEG formats simultaneously. In Finder, they will appear as two separate files, but when imported into your Photos library, they will appear as a single photo with the "RAW + JPEG" tag (or "JPEG + RAW", depending on which version of the image is set to be used as the original in Photos).
By default, Photomator and Pixelmator Pro will try to open the RAW version of the photo, unless specified otherwise or if Photos only gives us access to a specific format. For example, when using the Share Sheet to send images from Photos to Photomator/Pixelmator Pro, Photos will always provide us a JPEG version of your image.
I have a Fujifilm camera and shoot in compressed RAW format. Will Photomator / Pixelmator Pro open my photos?
Normally macOS / iOS doesn't support the compressed Fujifilm RAW format, but due to a custom implementation, Photomator and Pixelmator Pro are able to open and edit compressed RAWs from these Fujifilm cameras:
X-T2, X-T3, X-T4, X-T5, X-T20, X-T30, X-T30 II, X100V, X100F, X-E3, X-E4, X-H1, X-H2, X-H2S, X-S10, X-S20, X-Pro2, X-Pro3, GFX 50R, GFX 50S, GFX100S
Note: you can only open an uncompressed Fujifilm RAW if your macOS version supports uncompressed RAWs from the same camera. The only exception to this is for cameras that aren't natively supported by Apple at all, such as the Fujifilm X-S20. In such cases, macOS 13 / iOS 16 is required.