RAF to PDF Converter

Convert RAF to PDF Online

A RAF is a Fujifilm raw capture — the unprocessed sensor readout from an X-series or GFX body, which almost nothing outside a raw developer will open. Turning it into a PDF gives you a page anyone can view, print, email or sign off on, without asking them to install Capture One first. Upload one RAF for a single-page document, or a batch of them for a multi-page contact sheet, and the raw frames are developed and laid onto pages in one pass.

How to Convert RAF to PDF

1. Upload Your RAF Files: Drag and drop your .RAF files onto the page or click "+ Add Files" to browse. Every file you queue is converted with the same page settings.
2. Choose Single PDF or Individual PDFs: "Combine?" opens on "Single PDF", which puts every photo on its own page inside one document. Switch to "Individual PDFs" to get a separate file per RAF.
3. Set the Page Geometry: Pick a "Paper size" (A4 by default, or "Original" to make the page match the photo's own proportions), a "Page layout" of Portrait or Landscape, an "Image placement" of Contained or Cover, and a "Margin" preset.
4. Convert and Download: Click "Convert" and save your PDF. Files upload over an encrypted connection, are processed on our servers, and are deleted automatically after a few hours. No sign-up, no watermark.

Every Page Setting, and What It Opens On

RAF and PDF at a Glance

When a PDF Is the Wrong Target

PDF earns its place when the output is a document: a proof sheet a client signs off on, a print-ready page with controlled margins, an insurance or listing submission, a portfolio someone will scroll through on a phone. It is the wrong choice when the recipient wants a picture they can drop into a layout, retouch or upload — a PDF page wraps the photo in geometry nobody asked for, and pulling the image back out costs another conversion and another generation of loss. For that job, render the frame directly with RAF to JPG for a universal display copy, or RAF to TIFF if it is heading into an editor or to a print lab.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is actually inside the PDF — the raw data or a picture of it?

A picture of it. Our pipeline develops the raw frame and re-encodes it as a JPEG before PDFBox embeds it in the page, at the "Image Quality (%)" value you set, which opens on 75. So a PDF built from a RAF always contains JPEG-compressed pixels — there is no path that carries the sensor data itself into the document, and there could not be, because PDF has no raw-mosaic image type. If you need the highest-fidelity page image, raise Image Quality to 90-100 before converting.

Can I put several RAF photos into one PDF?

Yes, and this is the normal case. Upload all of them and leave "Combine?" on "Single PDF". Each photo becomes its own page, in the order the files are listed, and all of them are merged into one document — nothing is dropped. If you would rather have one file per photo, switch to "Individual PDFs" and you will get a separate PDF for each RAF in the batch. If you are mixing RAF files with JPEGs, PNGs or TIFFs in the same document, merge images to PDF accepts RAF alongside 35 other image formats.

Why does the "Image Transparency" setting make no difference to my RAF?

Because it cannot apply here. That control only takes effect when the source file is a PNG — the pipeline decides between a PNG and a JPEG intermediate by looking at the input file extension, and anything that is not PNG goes down the JPEG branch, which has no alpha channel to preserve or remove. A Fujifilm raw file has no transparency to begin with, since a camera sensor records opaque light values, so the setting is doubly moot on this page. Leave it on "Unchanged" and ignore it.

What paper size and placement should I use for a 3:2 Fujifilm frame?

If the PDF is for printing or for a document that has to look conventional, A4 (or Letter in the US) with "Contained" placement is right — the whole frame fits inside the margins and nothing is cropped. A4 portrait with the default Narrow 0.5" margins leaves a 7.27 x 10.69 inch printable box, and a 3:2 landscape photo contained inside it lands about 7.27 x 4.85 inches, with the rest as white space above and below. Use "Image alignment" to push it to the top or bottom if the balance looks wrong. If you would rather have no white space at all, set "Paper size" to "Original" so the page takes the photo's own proportions. Reach for "Cover" only when you deliberately want a full-bleed page and accept that the edges will be cropped.

Do I keep my raw editing latitude in the PDF?

No. A RAF stores what the sensor measured — 14-bit values on X-series bodies, 14 or 16-bit on GFX — and that headroom is exactly why exposure, white balance and highlight recovery stay adjustable while the file is raw. Making a PDF demosaics the data, renders it once with a neutral interpretation, drops it to 8 bits per channel and JPEG-compresses it. None of that is reversible. Keep the original .RAF as your master and treat the PDF as a delivery copy.

Why does the photo look flatter in the PDF than on my camera?

Fujifilm's Film Simulations — Provia, Velvia, Astia, Classic Chrome, Acros and the rest — are not stored as pixels in the RAF. They are instructions applied at render time, so the in-camera preview and your Fujifilm-aware editor both show you a look that a neutral development will not reproduce. On top of that, most X-series bodies use the X-Trans colour filter array, a 6 x 6 non-Bayer pattern, and every renderer demosaics it with its own algorithm, so pixel-level agreement between two converters is not something to expect. If the look matters, apply it in a raw developer, export a finished JPEG or TIFF, and build the PDF from that.

My PDF is much bigger than I expected — how do I shrink it?

Two levers. First, lower "Image Quality (%)" from its default of 75; a full-resolution 40 MP frame at high quality makes a genuinely large page, and 60-70 is usually indistinguishable on screen. Second, if the document already exists, run it through Compress PDF rather than re-converting. Keep in mind that page count multiplies everything — a twelve-photo contact sheet at default quality can easily reach tens of megabytes, which is more than most email attachment limits will take.

Are all Fujifilm RAF files the same, and will mine convert?

They all carry the .raf extension and all go through the same path here, but the sensors differ. Most X-series bodies write X-Trans raw data; Fujifilm's GFX medium-format cameras use a conventional array instead — the GFX100 II spec sheet lists a "102MP CMOS II HS with primary color filter" recording 14-bit or 16-bit RAF. Both convert. What will not convert is a file that has been renamed to .raf without being one, or a partial file from an interrupted card transfer, because there is no sensor data for the renderer to develop. If you only need the image rather than a document, RAF to JPG is the quicker route.