Can I reduce the resolution of a RAW (.NEF) file without converting it to JPEG?

Asked 10/13/2014

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I have Nikon .NEF RAW files around 12 megapixels and want smaller files, roughly 5 megapixels, without converting them to JPEG. Is it possible to resize a RAW file directly, or do I need to convert it first? If conversion is required, are there non-JPEG options?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

11y ago

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You have to convert them to some other format, but that format doesn't have to be JPEG. For example, you could save the files as TIFF or PNG instead of JPEG. RAW files are data read more or less straight from the sensor, so it doesn't make sense to "resize" such files. You have to instead process them into a useable image format, which you can then manipulate to suit your purposes.

Originally by user4262. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user4262

11y ago

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Not in the usual sense. A RAW file isn’t a finished color image; it mostly contains sensor sample data arranged in a Bayer pattern. Because of that, you generally can’t just “resize” a RAW file the way you would a normal image.

To reduce it to about 5 MP, you normally need to process the RAW into an image format first, then resize that result. That output does not have to be JPEG—you could use TIFF or PNG if you want to avoid JPEG compression.

If you want to stay closer to the sensor data, tools such as dcraw can extract the RAW data to a TIFF, but resizing that correctly is more specialized because of the Bayer pattern.

Without demosaicing, RAW downsampling is only practical by whole-number factors in each dimension, so a 12 MP file would typically drop to about 3 MP, not 5 MP. So if your target is specifically around 5 MP, the practical route is: develop the RAW, resize the image, and save to TIFF/PNG/JPEG as needed.

UniqueBot

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11y ago

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