Sony’s path to ARW ran through two earlier, short-lived raw formats: SRF, which appeared in January 2004 with the Cyber-shot DSC-F828, and SR2, introduced in December 2005 with the DSC-R1. ARW itself launched in July 2006 alongside the Alpha DSLR-A100, Sony’s first Alpha-series DSLR (built on Konica Minolta’s camera technology after Sony acquired that business), and has remained Sony’s standard raw format across the Alpha DSLR and mirrorless lines ever since.<\/p>
For a DAM, ARW behaves much like NEF or CR2 \u2014 a TIFF-based container with an embedded preview and MakerNotes that mainstream raw processors handle well given its now-lengthy track record. The one archival trap specific to Sony is format continuity across the SRF\/SR2\/ARW transition: a photo library that includes early-2000s Sony captures may have SRF or SR2 files mixed in among the far more common ARW files, and those older formats have much thinner software support today, making them a genuine risk for a DAM performing long-term preservation rather than just current-camera ingestion.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sony’s current TIFF-based RAW format for Alpha-series cameras, replacing the earlier SRF (2004) and SR2 (2005) formats, storing 12- or 14-bit raw sensor data with an embedded preview and Exif\/MakerNotes metadata.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":"","faq":[{"question":"What preceded ARW as Sony's raw format?","answer":"SRF from 2004 and SR2 from 2005 were Sony's earlier proprietary raw formats before ARW replaced them in July 2006 with the Alpha DSLR-A100."},{"question":"Does ARW use one fixed internal layout across all Sony camera generations?","answer":"No. The exact internal layout has shifted somewhat across camera generations, so decoding software needs per-model updates rather than a single fixed parser."},{"question":"Should a DAM treat old Sony SRF\/SR2 files the same as ARW?","answer":"No. SRF and SR2 are a genuinely separate legacy format used before ARW's 2006 debut and need distinct handling if a collection includes early Sony raw captures."},{"question":"What bit depths does ARW capture at?","answer":"12-bit or 14-bit raw sensor data, depending on the camera; newer bodies also offer both lossless-compressed and uncompressed ARW capture options."},{"question":"Is ARW structurally TIFF-based?","answer":"Yes. Like most vendor raw formats, ARW is TIFF-derived, carrying an embedded JPEG preview, standard Exif data, and Sony-specific MakerNotes."},{"question":"Should a DAM convert ARW masters to DNG?","answer":"Not urgently. ARW is stable and widely supported after two decades of use, so no urgent conversion is needed for active archives, though a DNG pass is still recommended for cross-brand DAM collections."},{"question":"What native Sony software opens ARW?","answer":"Sony Imaging Edge Desktop, alongside cross-vendor tools like Adobe Camera Raw\/Lightroom Classic, Capture One, RawTherapee, and darktable."},{"question":"When was ARW introduced?","answer":"July 2006, with the Sony Alpha DSLR-A100."}],"checked_date":"2026-08-07","sources":[{"statement":"ARW is Sony's proprietary RAW image format, introduced in 2006 with the Alpha DSLR-A100.","source_name":"PeasyImage - ARW Format, Sony Alpha Raw Images Explained","url":"https:\/\/peasyimage.com\/formats\/arw\/","checked":"2026-08-07"},{"statement":"Sony's raw format history runs SRF (January 2004, DSC-F828), then SR2 (December 2005, DSC-R1), then ARW (July 2006, Alpha DSLR-A100).","source_name":"GitHub - lclevy\/sony_raw: Description of Sony RAW file formats (SRF, SR2 and ARW)","url":"https:\/\/github.com\/lclevy\/sony_raw","checked":"2026-08-07"},{"statement":"SR2 was an early proprietary Sony raw format used for select models including the Cyber-shot DSC-R1, released in 2005.","source_name":"Wikipedia - Sony Cyber-shot DSC-R1","url":"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sony_Cyber-shot_DSC-R1","checked":"2026-08-07"}],"kicker":"","fact_checker":0,"reading_time":0,"revisions":[],"seo_title":"","seo_description":"","noindex":false,"ext":"arw","full_name":"Sony Alpha Raw","vendor_name":"Sony","introduced":"July 2006, with the Sony Alpha DSLR-A100","container_notes":"ARW is a TIFF-derived container carrying an embedded JPEG preview, standard Exif data, and Sony-specific MakerNotes; newer bodies offer both lossless-compressed and uncompressed ARW capture options. Like other vendor RAW formats, the exact internal layout has shifted somewhat across camera generations, so decoding software needs per-model updates rather than a single fixed parser.","open_with":[{"platform":"Sony native","how":"Sony Imaging Edge Desktop"},{"platform":"Cross-vendor commercial","how":"Adobe Camera Raw \/ Lightroom Classic"},{"platform":"Cross-vendor commercial","how":"Capture One"},{"platform":"Open source","how":"RawTherapee and darktable"}],"archive_advice":"ARW is stable and widely supported after two decades of use, so no urgent conversion is needed for active archives; still recommend a DNG conversion pass for cross-brand DAM collections. Note that Sony's older SRF\/SR2 files, used before ARW's 2006 debut, are a genuinely separate legacy format and need distinct handling if a collection includes early Sony raw captures.","related":[2599,2593,2609,2591,2594,2601],"tool_link":""},"silo":[23],"class_list":["post-2603","format","type-format","status-publish","hentry","silo-formats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/picajet.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/format\/2603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/picajet.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/format"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/picajet.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/format"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/picajet.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/format\/2603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3661,"href":"https:\/\/picajet.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/format\/2603\/revisions\/3661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/picajet.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"silo","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/picajet.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/silo?post=2603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}