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SRW converter

An .srw file is a Samsung RAW photograph from the company's NX-series mirrorless cameras and a few compacts, produced only during Samsung's 2010-2015 push into dedicated cameras. Because Samsung exited the camera business, .srw is now an orphaned format: existing files remain readable, but no new cameras will ever create them.

Private for supported formats — processed in your browser

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Runs on your device

Drop SRW files here

Batch files can each use a different output. Nothing uploads for local conversions.

Working inputs include camera RAW, browser-local audio/video, PDF, CBZ/CBR comics, office documents, ebooks, markup, 3D models, structured text, images, and archives.

Where SRW comes from

Samsung introduced SRW with the NX10 in 2010, its first mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera, and refined it through the well-regarded NX1 of 2014, whose 28-megapixel backside-illuminated APS-C sensor was ahead of its time. The company wound down its camera division around 2015-2017 without a successor, freezing the format's development permanently.

How SRW works

  • TIFF-based container with Samsung-specific tags around 12- and 14-bit Bayer mosaic data
  • The NX1 and NX500 wrote 14-bit files from a 28 MP BSI CMOS sensor, compressed losslessly
  • Embedded JPEG previews accompany the raw payload for browsing
  • MakerNotes store lens identification and image-stabilization details for NX-mount optics

When to use SRW

  • Reprocessing photo libraries shot on NX-system cameras
  • Migrating orphaned SRW archives to DNG for long-term safety
  • Extracting embedded previews when full raw development is unnecessary

Strengths and limitations

Strengths

  • Late-model files carry excellent 14-bit data from a genuinely advanced sensor
  • Mature decoder support already exists in every major raw engine
  • Lossless storage preserves the full capture for future converters

Limitations

  • The format is abandoned: no vendor updates, no new hardware, dwindling attention
  • Samsung's own raw software is discontinued and hard to obtain
  • Long-term readability depends entirely on third-party projects like LibRaw

Compatibility

Support added during the NX era persists: Lightroom, Capture One, darktable, and RawTherapee still open SRW files, as do LibRaw-based utilities. Nothing new is being added, however, so archivists commonly convert SRW to DNG while robust decoders remain maintained; browsers, as with all RAW, need a WebAssembly LibRaw build.

Standard EXIF and Samsung MakerNotes are embedded and still parsed correctly by ExifTool and major raw engines; XMP lives in sidecars written by editors.

Convert SRW to another format