TIFF to ARW Converter

TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) is the archival and print-production standard across professional photography, document scanning, and prepress workflows. It stores pixel data losslessly — no compression artifacts, no quality degradation on re-save — at 8-bit or 16-bit color depth per channel. A TIFF from a drum scanner or a high-end flatbed captures the full tonal range of the original print at precision that JPEG cannot match. That is why print labs, stock photo agencies, and archive departments specify TIFF as the preservation format. ARW (Alpha Raw Works) is Sony's proprietary RAW capture format used across the full Alpha mirrorless lineup: the A6x00 APS-C series, the full-frame A7, A7R, A7S, and A7C lines, the A9 sports bodies, and the A1. Camera-original ARW files store 12 or 14 bits of unprocessed sensor data before any in-camera processing — no Sony Creative Style, no Breathing Compensation, no Active SteadyShot metadata applied.

Converting TIFF to ARW repackages the TIFF pixel data into an ARW-compatible container. The output opens in Sony Imaging Edge Desktop, Adobe Lightroom Classic, and Capture One — the same applications that handle camera-original ARW. It does NOT create genuine Sony sensor data. TIFF is an already-rendered image; the conversion transfers the existing pixel data into the new container without modifying those pixels. Extended 16-bit precision in a TIFF source is downsampled to the 8-bit sRGB representation in the ARW output, because the ARW container in this conversion stores a standard 24-bit RGB decode rather than multi-bit RAW channels. The practical value is catalog organization: a photographer whose Lightroom library is built around Sony ARW files can bring TIFF sources — scanned film prints, client-supplied high-resolution archives, compositing exports — into the same collection structure.

Processing runs server-side. ImageMagick reads the TIFF and writes it into an ARW-compatible container. Both the uploaded TIFF and the output ARW are deleted from the server after download. TIFF-specific metadata — scanner model, photometric interpretation, resolution tags, embedded ICC color profiles — does not carry through to the ARW output. The file contains no Sony body identifier, no lens data, and no capture timestamp.

16-bit TIFF and bit depth

A 16-bit TIFF carries 65,536 tonal steps per channel, compared to 256 steps in an 8-bit image. This extended precision is useful during editing — adjustments to curves, levels, and color grading produce smoother gradients with less banding than equivalent edits on 8-bit data. The ARW container produced by this converter stores 8-bit sRGB data. If your TIFF workflow requires 16-bit output throughout, keep the file in TIFF format and convert to ARW only for catalog-organization purposes after editing is complete.

File size expectations

TIFF files can be large. An uncompressed 8-bit TIFF at 1920×1080 is approximately 5.9 MB. A 16-bit TIFF at the same dimensions is approximately 11.8 MB. TIFF-LZW and TIFF-ZIP compressed variants can be smaller, but lossless compression ratios depend heavily on image content. The converted ARW is similar in size to the uncompressed TIFF pixel dimensions at 24-bit depth. A 3000×2000 TIFF produces an ARW in the 17–18 MB range. Check the 20 MB upload limit against your TIFF file size before uploading; large-format scans at 600 DPI or above frequently exceed it.

Multi-page TIFF files

Multi-page TIFFs are common in scanned documents where multiple pages are bundled into a single file. This converter processes the first page only. If you need a specific page from a multi-page TIFF, split it first using a PDF or TIFF page-extraction tool, then upload the single-page file.