Color management and camera RAW

How it works#

Photo supports RGB, Grayscale, CMYK and Lab documents, with 8-, 16- and 32-bit editing paths. Higher bit depth can retain more tonal information during correction, but the destination format still determines what survives export. A 16-bit document exported as JPEG becomes an 8-bit image; review export warnings when a conversion may lose information.

An ICC profile describes how color values should be interpreted. Assign Profile changes that interpretation; Convert to Profile changes values for a destination profile. Soft proofing and gamut warnings help assess an output condition. A browser display and its color handling remain part of the viewing environment, so proofing is not a guarantee of a particular printer result.

Supported camera RAW files are developed into a 16-bit RGB document using a ProPhoto-compatible profile. Support varies by camera encoding, not just filename extension. Some unsupported encodings open an embedded JPEG preview instead, and CR3 uses a preview fallback rather than native CRX development. JPEG XL-compressed DNG is unsupported in the WebAssembly build. Read import warnings so a camera preview is not mistaken for full RAW data.

Try it#

1. Open the image and review any decoding or preview-fallback warnings.
2. Confirm the document color mode and depth before major corrections.
3. Use Assign Profile only to identify source values; use Convert to Profile for a destination conversion.
4. Choose an export format that retains the depth and color information you need.