ARW to PNG Converter

Convert ARW to PNG Online

ARW is Sony's Alpha Raw format — the unprocessed sensor readout straight off an α, RX or Cyber-shot body, which browsers and most general-purpose viewers cannot display at all. This converter demosaics that raw data and writes it out as a standard PNG: lossless compression, no JPEG blocking around high-contrast edges, and a file that opens in every browser, operating system and editor. Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, converted on our servers, and deleted automatically a few hours later — no sign-up, no watermark, never shared or made public.

How to Convert ARW to PNG

1. Upload Your ARW File: Drag and drop your .arw files onto the page or click "+ Add Files" to browse. Queue as many Sony raw frames as you like; they all convert with the same settings.
2. Pick a Quality Preset: Open Advanced Options and set "Quality preset" — "Very High (Recommended)" is preselected. PNG compression is lossless, so this governs how carefully the raw is developed into RGB rather than how much detail gets thrown away.
3. Set the Image Resolution: "Keep original" is preselected and gives you the sensor's full pixel dimensions. Switch to "Resolution Percentage", "Preset Resolutions", or an explicit "Width x Height" if a 6000-pixel-wide PNG is more than you need.
4. Tune Colors and Compression Level, Then Convert: Leave "Colors" on ORIGINAL for a photographic result, adjust "Compression level" (1-10, preselected at 6) if you want a smaller file, then click "Convert" and download the PNG.

ARW, PNG and JPG Side by Side

Tuning the PNG Encoder

PNG never discards pixels, so nothing in this section changes what the image looks like unless you touch "Colors" — the rest only trade encoding time against file size.

For a smaller everyday copy of the same shot, convert ARW to JPG instead. For a print or layout handoff, convert ARW to TIFF, which offers a choice of lossless compression schemes that print software expects.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will I lose image quality converting ARW to PNG?

The PNG encode itself discards nothing, so unlike a JPG there are no compression artifacts around edges or in flat sky. What you do lose is raw latitude: the ARW holds an undeveloped sensor mosaic, and writing a PNG bakes the white balance, exposure and tone curve into ordinary RGB pixels. After that you can no longer recover a blown highlight or reset the color temperature the way a raw editor could. Keep the .arw as your master and treat the PNG as a finished copy.

Does the PNG keep the 12- or 14-bit depth of my Sony raw?

The PNG specification does allow 16 bits per channel for true color, as MDN's image format guide documents, but this page exposes no bit-depth selector — so treat the output as a standard rendered image rather than a guaranteed high-bit master. If your workflow depends on 16-bit precision for heavy grading, do the raw development in Lightroom, Capture One or RawTherapee where you can set the export depth explicitly.

Why won't my ARW file open or preview normally?

Because it is not a picture yet. ARW stores the Bayer-pattern readings from behind the sensor's color filter array in a tagged, TIFF-derived structure with Sony's own private fields, and it needs a raw decoder plus a demosaic step before there is anything to display. Sony changes those internals with new bodies, which is why a brand-new camera's files sometimes fail to preview in software that has not been updated yet. Converting to PNG does the decode once and hands back normal RGB pixels.

Why is my PNG larger than the ARW it came from?

Because the two files store different things. The raw holds one brightness reading per photosite; the PNG holds three full color channels for every pixel. A 24-megapixel frame is about 24 million pixels, which works out to roughly 72 MB of 8-bit RGB data before compression, and lossless compression can only trim a modest slice of that on detailed photographic content. Scaling down with "Image resolution", or running the result through the Image Compressor, is far more effective than any encoder setting.

Should I choose PNG or JPG for a Sony photo?

Pick PNG when artifacts matter more than size: screenshots of the image, crops with hard edges or text, files you will re-edit and re-save several times, or anything that needs an alpha channel later. Pick JPG when the file has to be emailed, uploaded or posted, because a photographic JPG at a high quality setting is a fraction of the size and visually very close. There is no quality argument for PNG over raw itself — that comparison is about the rendering, not the container.

Will my PNG have a transparent background?

No. PNG supports full alpha, but a Sony raw is a fully opaque sensor capture with no transparency to carry over, so every pixel in the output is solid. The alpha channel matters here only if you plan to cut a subject out later in an editor and want a format that can hold the result without a matte.

What do the Compression level and Compression speed settings change?

Neither one touches the pixels. "Compression level" (1-10, starting at 6) sets how aggressively the encoder searches for redundancy; a higher value produces a smaller file from identical image data at the cost of encoding time. "Compression speed" (1-10, starting at 4) controls how long that search runs. If you set "Quality preset" to "Highest", both the "Compression speed" and "Colors" controls disappear from the panel, because the preset takes those choices over.

Does the PNG keep my EXIF, lens and GPS data?

Do not count on it. PNG was designed around textual chunks rather than the EXIF blocks that JPEG and TIFF grew up with, and while a modern eXIf chunk exists, application support for reading it is uneven. If the shooting data is the point — lens, focal length, exposure, GPS track — keep the original .arw alongside the PNG, or convert to JPG or TIFF, which have long-established metadata handling.

Are my uploaded Sony raw files kept private?

Yes. Each ARW is sent over an encrypted connection, decoded and rendered on our servers, and deleted automatically a few hours after the job finishes, along with the PNG it produced. There is no sign-up, the output carries no watermark, and nothing is shared or made public. The realistic constraint on a large batch is upload time, since full-frame Sony raws routinely run 25 to 60 MB each.