RAW

File extension raw is traditionally used for RAW image format, a picture format used by digital cameras for "raw" images take by the device that are not yet processed to for use. These files are sometimes also called digital negatives, because they serve same purpose as negatives  in film photography.

The RAW image stores a wider dynamic range or color gamut than the eventual final image format, and it preserves most of the information of the captured image.

RAW image content:

• Short file header
• Camera sensor metadata
• Image metadata
• An image thumbnail
• Timecode, keycode or framebuffer
• Sensor image data

There are many different RAW formats, most of them based on TIFF format. Major digital camera manufacturers assign different file extension for their RAW formats. One of the most known RAW formats include:

• KDC (Kodak)
• CR2 (Canon)
• ERF (Epson)
• NEF (Nikon)
• ORF (Olympus)
• RW2 (Panasonic)
• SR2 (Sony)

Digital camera photo RAW files can be opened in vendor's specialized software, like Canon Digital Photo Professional, Nikon Capture NX-D, Panasonic PHOTOfunSTUDIO, etc.

You can also use universal photo editors, like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, Zoner Photo Studio and many more.

These apps are also able to transform RAW images to popular picture image formats, like JPG, PNG, BMP etc.

The raw file extension is associated with the Adobe Photoshop, a picture image and digital photo editing tool for Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS X operating systems.

The raw file stores picture image or photo in tif(Aldus Tagged Image File Format) without file header (with no information on the size of the image, pixel place and order etc.. but only the pixel data).

The Photoshop RAW format is used, for example, with medical devices as the way the file should be read (the header) is located in the machine, therefore, no header is required in the file itself.

A Photoshop Raw image is not in the same file format as a camera raw image file from a digital camera!

The raw file extension is associated with the HP V41 programmable calculators introduced in 1979 by Hewlett-Packard. Production was stopped in 1990.

The raw file stores program created for HP V41 calculator.

The raw file extension is associated with the ISIS, a pulsed neutron and muon source at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire.

Data collected during an experiment on an ISIS instrument is saved to disk as an ISIS RAW data file.

The raw file extension was also used for Nimbus 7 data format.

The Department of Atmospheric Physics has accumulated a valuable archive of atmospheric infra-red radiance measurements from its satellite experiments which started with the Nimbus 4 SCR in 1970.

Originally data was recorded on magnetic tape. The old tapes became unreliable and data was copied to optical discs in 1990. The optical disk media in turn became expensive and unreliable to support.

In 1997 a NERC SEEDCORN grant was awarded to move the data to CD-ROMs which could make the data available on a wide variety of hardware. This opportunity was also used to catalogue and publicise the archive.

This archive is intended as a supplement to that at the British Atmospheric Data Centre which concentrates on retrieved geophysical parameters (Temperatures, volume mixing ratios etc) rather than the radiance data available here. Low level radiance data is less in demand not least because its interpretation requires more knowledge of the details of the instrument making the measurements.

The raw file extension is also used for RAW sound files. The raw audio file can contain sound in any codec but is usually used for PCM audio data. It is rarely used except for technical tests.

The raw file extension is also related to one of the less common disk image formats supported for example by VirtualBox software from Oracle.

The raw disk image stores captured data from floppy disks, hard drives, or optical disks without any procession, customization, or compression only sector by sector binary copy depend on file system.

The raw disk image is able to contain multiple tracks, audio, video, data tracks.

However, typically raw files are either pictures (photos taken by digital cameras in their raw data format) or audio files ripped from disks, not disk images.

Some CD/DVD burning applications may not support raw CD/DVD images, but renaming it to ISO can make it recognizable for the software.

The raw file extension is associated with the Sentry 2020, a data protection and encryption application for Microsoft Windows operating system.

The raw file stores encrypted and protected user's case sensitive data.

The raw file extension is associated with the XL-Paint, a picture image editing software developed for ATARI 8-bit family of computers, introduced in 1979.

The raw file stores picture image (160x192, 16 colors) created in the XL-Paint program.

The raw file extension is associated with some emulators of ZX Spectrum 8-bit computers, developed by Sinclair Research in early 1980s.

The raw file stores RAW memory dump from a real Spectrum. It is the 48Kb of ZX Spectrum RAM and a CODE header on the front.