RAW files are the highest-quality image you'll ever have from a camera — and the most annoying to organize. They're large (25–50 MB each), numerous, and often paired with JPEG versions you shot at the same time. A good RAW workflow culls aggressively, keeps RAW and JPEG together, and avoids proprietary catalogs that lock you in.
The first rule of RAW organization is no import step. A manager that decodes your RAW files where they already sit — straight from the memory card folder — avoids duplicating files and building a catalog you're then trapped in.
When you shoot RAW+JPEG, you get two files per shot. A good manager groups them as one item, so your library shows one photo instead of two, and moving or deleting one keeps the pair together.
RAW libraries are full of near-misses — slightly soft focus, bad framing, test shots. Cull first with a side-by-side comparison view, and you'll often cut the volume in half before tagging a single file.
RAW metadata is rich. Filtering by the camera body and lens that shot each photo is the fastest way to find a specific image — and it's information only RAW files carry so reliably.
Storage is cheap; re-shooting is not. Keep the RAW as your master and export JPEG/HEIC only for sharing. This preserves maximum editability without cluttering your working library.
| Aspect | RAW | JPEG |
|---|---|---|
| Typical file size | 25–50 MB | 2–5 MB |
| Editability | Full sensor data | Compressed, limited |
| Metadata depth | Rich (camera/lens) | Basic |
| Ideal role | Master archive | Sharing / preview |
Lap decodes 24 RAW formats via LibRaw (CR2, CR3, NEF, ARW, RAF, DNG and more), pairs RAW with same-named JPEG/HEIC, and offers a four-pane comparison viewer for fast culling.
RAW files are the pickiest format in any library. Every camera maker wraps sensor data differently — .ARW, .CR3, .NEF, .RAF — and operating systems render them inconsistently at best. A library tool that cannot display RAW quickly turns your archive into a box of unlabeled negatives: you know the images exist, but you cannot see them.
Check RAW handling before committing to any organizer. Native decoding of all major makers, correct EXIF orientation, and paired JPEG rendering (so your camera's RAW+JPEG pairs display as one photo, not two) are the baseline. Lap's photo viewer covers these and keeps a dedicated RAW cache, so a folder of 45-megapixel .RAF files browses as smoothly as JPEGs.
Rating during review is where RAW workflows live or die. Because the RAW is your negative, you want to flag selects and rejects without touching the files themselves — metadata-only ratings that survive export. Fast keyboard culling in the viewer, then develop only the selects in your editor of choice.
RAW files are large and write-once: you rarely edit them in place, so the layout should optimize for append and read. A year/shoot hierarchy on bulk storage, with the viewer's cache on SSD, gives you instant browsing without paying SSD prices for terabytes of negatives.
Keep the sidecar files — .xmp edits, ratings — beside their RAWs or in a single metadata store the tool manages. What matters is portability: five years from now, the ratings and picks you made during review should still be readable, not trapped in a discontinued app's database. Folder-adjacent metadata ages best.
Finally, verify your archive periodically. RAW files don't degrade, but drives do. Because everything stays in plain folders, verification is a simple checksum job over the tree — no catalog to rebuild after swapping a failed drive, just copy the folders back and resume browsing where you left off.
Lap supports 24 RAW formats including CR2, CR3, NEF, NRW, ARW, RAF, RW2, ORF, PEF and DNG.
Yes — Lap groups a RAW file with its same-named JPEG/HEIC companion as a single item.
No. Lap is folder-first and decodes in place — your RAW files stay as ordinary files.
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