About ARW (Sony Alpha RAW)
ARW is the RAW format written by Sony Alpha cameras — the a7 and a9 mirrorless lines, the a6000 series, and the earlier SLT and DSLR models. The name stands for Alpha RAW, and like most camera RAW types the format is TIFF-based. Depending on the body and its settings, files are stored uncompressed, lossless compressed, or in Sony's older lossy compressed mode, at 12 or 14 bits per channel.
You keep ARW files when you want full control in editing — recovering skies, fixing white balance, pulling detail out of shadows — and you convert them the moment you need to share a shot, print at a kiosk, or view it anywhere without RAW support. That conversion happens entirely in your browser here: free, no signup, and the file never leaves your machine. Two honest caveats: this site reads ARW but cannot create it, and the neutral RAW rendering may not reproduce the exact colors of Sony's Imaging Edge software.
Strengths
- Full sensor data with wide dynamic range — Sony sensors are known for shadow recovery
- Lossless compressed option on newer bodies keeps files smaller with no data loss
- Widely supported by major photo editors and RAW processors
Limitations
- Unreadable in most non-photography software without conversion first
- The older lossy compressed mode can show artifacts in extreme edits
- Cannot be created here — conversion works from ARW only
- Neutral rendering may shift colors relative to Sony's own processing