RAF to TIFF Converter

RAF vs TIF — Is TIF the Right Target for a Fujifilm Raw File?

Two very different files get called "high quality" in a photo workflow, and people converting Fujifilm raw captures usually have to decide between them. A RAF holds what the sensor measured, at 14 bits per photosite on X-series bodies. A TIF holds a finished picture, and here it holds one at 8 bits per channel. The short answer: convert to TIF when a print lab, a page-layout app or a retoucher needs to open the file, and keep the RAF as your master regardless — the TIF is a working copy, not a replacement negative.

Side by Side

When TIF Is the Right Target

• A print lab or RIP asked for it. TIFF is still the default handoff format for photographic printing, and every RIP reads LZW.
• The file is going into a layout. InDesign, QuarkXPress and Affinity Publisher place TIFFs natively; none of them place RAF.
• Someone else is retouching. A lossless TIF survives repeated edit-and-save cycles without accumulating compression artefacts the way a re-saved JPEG does.
• You need a stable interchange copy. TIFF has been readable by essentially everything since 1992, which is more than any camera maker's raw format can claim.

When to Stay on the RAF Instead

• You still want to change exposure or white balance. Those live in the raw data and do not survive rendering, whatever compression you pick.
• You want the Fujifilm look. Film Simulations are render-time instructions, not pixels in the file, so a neutral development will not reproduce Velvia or Classic Chrome. Apply the look in a raw developer first, then export.
• You are archiving for the long term at full fidelity. This path writes 8 bits per channel; your camera captured 14 or 16. A raw developer can write a 16-bit TIFF and preserve that headroom, and the original RAF preserves all of it.
• The file is only going online. A TIF is enormous for something that ends up as a 1600 px web image. Render straight to JPG or AVIF instead.

How to Convert RAF to TIF

1. Upload Your RAF File: Drag and drop your Fujifilm .RAF files onto the page or click "+ Add Files". You can queue several and they convert with the same settings.
2. Set the Compression Type: This is the setting that decides whether your TIF is lossless. It opens on "JPEG", which is lossy — change it to "LZW" or "DEFLATE" for a lossless file.
3. Choose an Image Resolution (Optional): "Image resolution" opens on "Keep original". Use "Preset Resolutions", "Width x Height" or the percentage slider only if you want the TIF smaller than the capture.
4. Convert and Download: Click "Convert" and save your TIF. Files upload over an encrypted connection, are processed on our servers, and are deleted automatically after a few hours. No sign-up, no watermark.

Compression Types, and Which Ones to Actually Use

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a TIF made from a RAF really lossless?

Only in a narrow sense, and this is the most important thing to understand before you use one for archival. Pick LZW, Deflate, ZSTD, PackBits or None and the compression itself throws away nothing — the pixels you get back are exactly the pixels that were written. But those pixels are 8 bits per channel, and your camera recorded 14 (X-series) or up to 16 (GFX). This page has no bit-depth control, so that reduction happens on every conversion, lossless compression or not. For a display or print copy that is completely fine. For a genuine archival master, keep the .RAF itself, or export a 16-bit TIFF from a raw developer.

Which compression type should I pick?

LZW if you want one answer and no research. It is lossless, it has been in the TIFF spec since 6.0, and there is no realistic reader that cannot open it. Deflate (ZIP) is equally lossless and usually a few percent smaller, so prefer it when you know the recipient's software is modern. Choose None only when an old scanner or RIP has explicitly asked for uncompressed data. Leave the setting on its JPEG default only if you deliberately want a smaller, lossy file — which mostly defeats the point of choosing TIF over JPG.

Why are both "LOSSY" and "JPEG" in the compression list?

They are the same setting under two labels — both resolve to the same JPEG encoder mode inside the pipeline, so picking one or the other produces an identical file. It is a duplicate entry in the dropdown rather than two different behaviours. Treat "LOSSY" as an alias and ignore it.

What happens if I pick CCITT Fax 4 or JP2K?

Nothing good, and the failure is quiet. CCITT Group 4 is a bilevel fax encoding — it can only represent pure black and pure white, so it has no way to store a colour photograph. JP2K is offered in the dropdown but is not among the compression modes the underlying TIFF writer accepts at all. In our testing both produced a file of only a few hundred bytes — a header with no usable image data, which reads back as blank — while the conversion still reported success. Neither is a valid choice for a photograph, so avoid both and use LZW or Deflate.

Does the Quality Preset do anything on this page?

Only when the compression type is a lossy one. The quality value is passed to the TIFF writer, but the writer applies it exclusively to JPEG and WebP compression; under LZW, Deflate, ZSTD, PackBits or None it is simply ignored, because there is no quality knob in a lossless scheme to turn. So if you have set Compression Type to LZW, moving Quality Preset from "Very High" to "Medium" changes nothing about the file you get.

Is .tif the same as .tiff?

Yes — identical format, two spellings of the same extension. The three-letter form is a leftover from systems that capped extensions at three characters, and the output here is byte-for-byte the same either way. This page also shows a "File extension" control listing both TIFF and TIF with neither one pre-selected; leave it alone and you get the extension this page is named for. If your workflow prefers the longer spelling, RAF to TIFF is the same conversion under the other name.

How much bigger will the TIF be than my RAF?

Usually bigger, sometimes much bigger, and the arithmetic is easy to check. An 8-bit RGB TIFF needs three bytes per pixel before compression, so a 40.2 MP X-T5 frame at 7728 x 5152 is 119 MB uncompressed, and a 102 MP GFX100 II frame at 11648 x 8736 is 305 MB. LZW and Deflate claw some of that back, but photographic detail compresses poorly under lossless schemes, so expect a lossless TIF to land in the same range as — or above — the 40-80 MB raw file it came from. That is the trade you are making for universal compatibility. If an existing TIFF is too large, compress TIFF will shrink it without changing format.

What DPI will the TIF arrive at for my print lab?

Whatever the lab reads from the tag, but the number that actually matters is the pixel count, and this page has no DPI control. DPI is only a note telling a printer how densely to lay the pixels down; it never adds or removes any. At the standard 300 DPI for photographic printing, the 7728 px width of a 40 MP X-T5 frame gives a 25.8-inch print before any interpolation, which clears almost any consumer print size. Leave "Image resolution" on "Keep original", send the full pixel grid, and set the DPI tag in an editor only if the lab specifically insists on one.