Google+ Improves RAW Photo Handling

Google has tapped into the impressive skills it obtained after purchasing Nik Software, and has overhauled how the social network handles RAW files. Google+ can now take photos from more than 70 different cameras, and convert them more accurately to JPEG natively.

If, for whatever reason, you prefer to upload your photos to share in their RAW form, you can now just upload them directly to Google+, and let the site just crunch the numbers for you. Judging by the examples that Google has posted, the new engine seems to do a much better job with colors, and more cameras are planned to be added regularly.

As of right now, Google+ can handle RAW files from:

• Canon EOS: 100D, 1000D, 1100D, 1D Mark III, 1D Mark IV, 1Ds Mark III, 1Dx, 20D, 30D, 350D, 400D, 40D, 450D, 500D, 50D, 550D, 5D, 5D Mark II, 5D Mark III, 600D, 60D, 650D, 6D, 700D, 7D, M
• Canon Powershot: G12, G1X, S100
• Nikon: 1 J1, 1 J2, 1 J3, 1 S1, 1 V1, 1 V2, Coolpix A, D300, D300s, D3000, D3100, D3200, D4, D40, D40X, D5000, D5100, D5200, D600, D700, D7000, D7100, D800, D800E, D90
• Olympus: OM-D E-M5, PEN EP1, PEN EP2, PEN EP3, PEN EPL3, PEN EPL5
• Panasonic: LUMIX DMC GF1
• Sony: Alpha 700, NEX-5, NEX-5N, NEX-6, NEX-7, NEX-C3, NEX-F3, RX1, RX100, SLT Alpha 55, SLT Alpha 77, SLT Alpha 99

If you’re scratching your head why you would waste your bandwidth by uploading extremely large RAW files rather than the JPEGs that you can generate on your computer, it comes down to accessibility. As they mention in the announcement, “Try uploading your own RAW image, and let us know what you think! From there you can edit the JPEG copy as much as you’d like with our new editor (http://goo.gl/6QKhqW/), and download the original RAW file whenever you want.” So that means once you upload a RAW file, you can share the JPEG, and then download the RAW again whenever you want. So you can access your files on the go, while simultaneously sharing them. And that’s pretty neat.