Melt guide

Convert RAW photos to JPG on Mac

RAW photos from any camera need to become JPGs to share or upload. Here's how to convert RAW to JPG on macOS.

4 min read

You came back from a shoot with hundreds of RAW files — .nef from Nikon, .arw from Sony, .cr3 from Canon, .dng from a drone or phone — and you need JPGs to send to a client or post online. RAW files are huge, lossless, and not really images so much as sensor data. Converting them is straightforward; the tradeoffs are worth understanding.

What RAW is

RAW formats are camera-specific containers for sensor data plus metadata. Common ones:

Each carries 12–16-bit sensor values, full editing latitude, and an embedded JPEG preview.

The native way: sips

macOS reads most RAW formats. Single file:

sips -s format jpeg photo.nef --out photo.jpg
sips -s format jpeg photo.arw --out photo.jpg
sips -s format jpeg photo.dng --out photo.jpg

Folder of mixed RAW:

mkdir jpg
for f in *.nef *.NEF *.arw *.ARW *.cr2 *.CR2 *.cr3 *.CR3 *.dng *.DNG; do
  [ -e "$f" ] || continue
  sips -s format jpeg -s formatOptions 85 "$f" --out "jpg/${f%.*}.jpg"
done

The native way: Preview

Preview opens any RAW format macOS recognises:

  1. Open the RAW in Preview.
  2. File → Export.
  3. Pick JPEG.
  4. Set quality.
  5. Save.

Slow for hundreds of files but fine for spot checks.

The faster way

Drop the RAW folder into Melt, pick JPEG, set quality, click Compress. Uses the same macOS raw decoders as sips and Preview, but with batch progress and resize built in — useful when you want web-sized JPEGs from 24+ MP raw files. Download Melt.

Bulk convert in Melt

  1. Open Melt.
  2. Drag your RAW folder in.
  3. Set output to JPEG.
  4. Quality 85–90 for sharing, 92+ for archive copies.
  5. Optionally resize to 2000–3000 px on the long edge.
  6. Click Compress.

When you should use a real raw developer

If the photos are important — paid work, portfolio, anything where the look matters — process in Lightroom, Capture One, or the free Darktable. Those tools give you per-image control over exposure, white balance, highlight recovery, shadow lift, and sharpening. sips and Preview use Apple’s default raw rendering, which is decent but generic.

For “I just need JPGs of these 400 shots to send to the client”, the native tools are fine.

What you lose, what you keep

RAW → JPEG drops you from 12–16-bit colour to 8-bit. You lose recoverable highlights, shadow detail, and editing latitude. You can’t get those back from the JPEG. EXIF and capture date are preserved by default (sips, Preview, Melt) unless you ask Melt to strip them.

Keep the RAW originals on external storage. They’re the negatives.

← All Melt tips