Nikon Z8 RAW photos incompatible with Apple "Photos" app

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James C.

James C.

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After doing a LOT of research, and thinking about getting a Nikon Z8, I finally decided to get one. I was very happy when my brand new Nikon Z8 arrived a couple of days ago. Imagine my shock and disappointment when I imported my first uncompressed RAW photos into the Apple "Photos" app on my Mac and saw just blank, grey squares where the images' thumbnails should have been!

I use the Photos app for sorting, cataloging (by species), and simple editing of my bird/wildlife photos. For more detailed editing, I use Affinity Photo 2. (Affinity Photo 2 doesn't seem to have any problems working with Z8 uncompressed RAW photos, by the way.) But if I can't SEE the photos that I've just imported, I AM STUCK!

I have since learned of others here on BCG having the same issue, and not just with Apple Photos on their Macs, but other 3rd party photo editing apps (e.g., Adobe Lightroom).

Now I am in a real quandary! I just spent thousands of dollars on a camera (and accessories) that produces RAW photos that are nearly unusable in my current workflow. I guess I can go back to using my D500 so that I have USABLE photos until Nikon and most of the 3rd party app developers make their software work with Z8 photos. But how long will THAT take?

I realize that with any new hardware or software, one puts themselves on the "bleeding edge" of technology and unexpected problems (and their related frustrations) are why it is called "the bleeding edge." I'm just wondering, do I:

1) hang up the Z8 and go back to using my D500 for however long it takes for this issue to be resolved, or
2) go out and use the Z8 and take photos that I know I can't easily review & sort through on my computer?

Thanks for any useful suggestions.

p.s. I have already sent feedback to Apple about this problem. I would suggest that any other Mac users who've run into this Z8 RAW roadblock also send Apple feedback. With luck, the more people who tell them about this problem (possibly) the sooner it will be fixed. Here's the link: www.apple.com/feedback
 
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Today, 7/24/2023, Apple released an update to MacOS Ventura (v. 13.5). However, it appears that it DID NOT provide a fix for the Z8 RAW images incompatibility issue in the "Photos" app.
 
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James C. said:
After doing a LOT of research, and thinking about getting a Nikon Z8, I finally decided to get one. I was very happy when my brand new Nikon Z8 arrived a couple of days ago. Imagine my shock and disappointment when I imported my first uncompressed RAW photos into the Apple "Photos" app on my Mac and saw just blank, grey squares where the images' thumbnails should have been!

I use the Photos app for sorting, cataloging (by species), and simple editing of my bird/wildlife photos. For more detailed editing, I use Affinity Photo 2. (Affinity Photo 2 doesn't seem to have any problems working with Z8 uncompressed RAW photos, by the way.) But if I can't SEE the photos that I've just imported, I AM STUCK!

I have since learned of others here on BCG having the same issue, and not just with Apple Photos on their Macs, but other 3rd party photo editing apps (e.g., Adobe Lightroom).

Now I am in a real quandary! I just spent thousands of dollars on a camera (and accessories) that produces RAW photos that are nearly unusable in my current workflow. I guess I can go back to using my D500 so that I have USABLE photos until Nikon and most of the 3rd party app developers make their software work with Z8 photos. But how long will THAT take?

I realize that with any new hardware or software, one puts themselves on the "bleeding edge" of technology and unexpected problems (and their related frustrations) are why it is called "the bleeding edge." I'm just wondering, do I:

1) hang up the Z8 and go back to using my D500 for however long it takes for this issue to be resolved, or
2) go out and use the Z8 and take photos that I know I can't easily review & sort through on my computer?

Thanks for any useful suggestions.

p.s. I have already sent feedback to Apple about this problem. I would suggest that any other Mac users who've run into this Z8 RAW roadblock also send Apple feedback. With luck, the more people who tell them about this problem (possibly) the sooner it will be fixed. Here's the link: www.apple.com/feedback
Click to expand...

Just a thought, you've paid for a high-end camera, why not use high-end software? Photos is ok for snapshots, etc., but LrC and others far outshine Apple Photos. I've been a mac user for 40 years and I do use Photos, but only for the mundane day-to-day pics (the cat food my cat likes so I can remember at the store!). All of my serious work is done using LrC, PS, Topaz and other high-end software. Perhaps it's time to step up your processing to LrC or one of the other software programs mentioned so that you can get the very best rendition of your images with that very expensive camera. I have both the Z8 and the Z9 and the RAW images in LrC work just fine on both. $10 a month for the Adobe package is not a lot of money for what you get, LrC includes a module for managing photos (Library), printing photos, developing photos, creating a book, creating a slide show, and the Adobe package comes with many other things, limitless fonts, graphic art software (including AI), and access to video software.
 
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Ado Wolf said:
Get the free software from Nikon: NX Studio.
I use it on my Mac without any issues (and I find it better than the native IOS Photos app).
Click to expand...
I tried NX Studio a couple of years ago, but as I recall, it required being on my Mac's hard drive to run and work with the photos. I have a 2TB hard drive on my Mac, and I figured that over time, it would eat up my Mac's available hard drive space. (I now have over 30,000 photos (~ 1.5 TB).) I figured, in the long run, I'd have to find a way to work with an external hard drive.

When I started doing bird/wildlife photography three years ago, I knew that I'd fill up my Mac's hard drive quickly with photos if I did all of my importing and storing on it, and I didn't want to do that. So I got a 4TB external hard drive, and (with help from Apple Support) I created a new photo library on it that was separate from the Apple System Photo Library on my Mac's hard drive. This way, I could still use the Photos app to import my bird photos, review them, do basic post-processing, and catalog them in "Albums" (according to species) while also keeping them in their RAW format on the external drive. When I need to do more advanced editing on a photo (which I don't do often), I use Affinity Photo, which was a one-time purchase, unlike having to pay Adobe month after month, forever! (Much more economical in the long-term.)

Now, as I recall, NX Studio requires that I do everything on my Mac's hard drive. (Which would eat up my Mac's hard drive space in no time.) And does NX Studio offer a way for me to catalog and store my photos? And even if it does, I will now have to somehow manage cataloging the Z8 photos separately from the 30,000 photos that I have already cataloged under the Apple Photos app.

So, as you can see, I feel like I'm really stuck "between a rock and a hard place" now.

I assume that most of you don't import, edit, catalog, and store your photos on your computer's hard drive, but use an external drive instead, also.
How do the rest of you (who don't use Adobe's subscription-based products) import, edit, and catalog your photos? What does your workflow look like?

Thanks for your guidance.
 
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Well, I tried NX Studio (again) today to see if it might offer a solution.
I tried installing it on my iMac's hard drive. It saw some old photos that I'd saved on my external drive, but it couldn't see photos inside the Apple phot library on the external drive. (That didn't surprise me.) So I opened the Apple Photos app using the photolibrary on the external drive. I then, right-clicked on one of the empty grey squares that represent the Z8 RAW photos that I imported a few days ago. I then selected: "Edit with", and then clicked on "NX Studio." I got the following error message:
NX Studio error message.jpg
You can only see EXIF info for this image if you are logged in.

I tried a couple of times and got the same error.

So I uninstalled NX Studio, and re-booted my Mac.
Then, I tried installing NX Studio from the external drive with my wildlife photos to see if I could install it there, AND if that might allow the photos to be editable. Nope.
NX Studio installed on my Mac's hard drive, and I got the same error message again when I tried to tell the Z8 photo in my photolibrary to "Edit with NX Studio."

So, as of now, the only solution to at least viewing the Z8's RAW photos is for me to import them into Apple's Photos app (where they appear as blank, gray squares), then launch Affinity Photo 2, then drag & drop a photo from the Photos app into the Affinity window, where it opens properly, and decide if I want to keep it or trash it in the Photos app. I, then, close the photo in Affinity, and repeat the procedure, one-at-a-time, for every photo that I've imported from the Z8 into the Photos app.

Interestingly, I can still add Keywords and location metadata to each photo so that I can at least catalog the photo into the album for each bird species. When the "Photos" app finally supports the Z8 RAW format, I can then go about editing them and (should) still have the benefit of having the edited photo in its original RAW format. (Which I can't do in Affinity, or I guess most other editing apps, since it requires the edited photo to be saved or exported in a format other than RAW.)

Well, at least I've learned that one of the criteria for deciding to buy a newly released camera is to make sure that the camera will create image files that will work with your post-processing software!
 
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When Sonoma is released it’s highly likely the Apple Photos app will read them. If you want to use NX Studio your photos can’t be in the Apple Photos app.
Z8 is not special here. It took a full release for Z9 to be seen by the MacOS. Apple is known to only add cameras with full releases, and they don’t appear intent on supporting HE*.
 
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So im in the same situation as alot of you…

I have used apple photos for a long time to organized/tag my photos but all my editing has been done with affinity photo.

I have never had any issues with this workflow until i got my Z8.

I have thought of migrating to lightroom as i think the editing would be easier than affinity photo but i dont feel limited with affinity photo at all so im hesitant to get in the adobe world as of yet.

Has anyone actually migrated from apple photos to lightroom with a fairly large catalog?

Any issues at all or things to be aware of?
 
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Viathelens said:
Just a thought, you've paid for a high-end camera, why not use high-end software? Photos is ok for snapshots, etc., but LrC and others far outshine Apple Photos. I've been a mac user for 40 years and I do use Photos, but only for the mundane day-to-day pics (the cat food my cat likes so I can remember at the store!). All of my serious work is done using LrC, PS, Topaz and other high-end software. Perhaps it's time to step up your processing to LrC or one of the other software programs mentioned so that you can get the very best rendition of your images with that very expensive camera. I have both the Z8 and the Z9 and the RAW images in LrC work just fine on both. $10 a month for the Adobe package is not a lot of money for what you get, LrC includes a module for managing photos (Library), printing photos, developing photos, creating a book, creating a slide show, and the Adobe package comes with many other things, limitless fonts, graphic art software (including AI), and access to video software.
Click to expand...
Great advice and very well said
 
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Viathelens said:
Just a thought, you've paid for a high-end camera, why not use high-end software? Photos is ok for snapshots, etc., but LrC and others far outshine Apple Photos. I've been a mac user for 40 years and I do use Photos, but only for the mundane day-to-day pics (the cat food my cat likes so I can remember at the store!). All of my serious work is done using LrC, PS, Topaz and other high-end software. Perhaps it's time to step up your processing to LrC or one of the other software programs mentioned so that you can get the very best rendition of your images with that very expensive camera. I have both the Z8 and the Z9 and the RAW images in LrC work just fine on both. $10 a month for the Adobe package is not a lot of money for what you get, LrC includes a module for managing photos (Library), printing photos, developing photos, creating a book, creating a slide show, and the Adobe package comes with many other things, limitless fonts, graphic art software (including AI), and access to video software.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the suggestion.
 
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Steve W said:
Perhaps Adobe DNG converter may help.
Click to expand...
I downloaded DNG Converter and experimented with it. This appears to be a useful workaround.

What I discovered was that there is a setting that allows the converted image file to contain the RAW data. I then save the converted DNG file to a separate folder on my Mac, and then import it into the Apple "Photos" app. Once in "Photos," the photo appears with a filename ending in .dng, but the "RAW" tag shows in the upper-left corner of the image. So you basically, I still have all of the image's data to work with.

The only drawbacks I have found with this workaround are:
  1. The image is now easily TWICE the size of a simple Z8 RAW file. (I assume it's because you now have both the .dng data AND the RAW data in the image file.) In my experiment, this inflated a 65MB image to 115.6MB! (This will REALLY eat up hard drive space!)
  2. Once the image is imported into "Photos", you CANNOT make a duplicate. (When I have a "keeper" photo that I want to edit, I ALWAYS make a duplicate, and work with that. I leave the original alone.) This now forces me to edit the original, which IMO, is NEVER a good idea.
So, since I don't want to be locked into a $10/month subscription fee for Adobe Lightroom forever, as well as deal with migrating over 30,000 photos; I guess, this will now be my workflow until Apple's Photos app supports Z8 RAW files (hopefully in September, which is usually when Apple releases new MacOS versions).

Thanks again everyone for your suggestions, and if you have any other helpful ideas, please let me know.
 
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You will get a lot more out of your Z9 captures if you use one of the top raw conversion/editing programs. I teach Lightroom and invariably one of my students, who generally having been using Apple photo before, will say, "Wow, I didn't know I could do that." I did an overview of Lightroom for the photography collective where I teach which you can see on Youtube here.

Adobe's Lightroom Classic is a good place to start as opposed to Photoshop which has a tougher learning curve, Lightroom also has a related app that comes with the subscription so you can integrate your phone photography with your camera and scanner photography. Many photographers are using On1 as well.

There are plenty of places to learn Lightroom online. My first recommendation would be Kelbyone.com. Scott Kelby is a great teacher. Kelbyone.com also has courses on On1, the alternative to LRC. Tim Grey and Matt Koslowski also have good courses.

For Photoshop, I highly recommend JP Caponigro's Kelbyone course Drawing with Light, but, having taken many online Photoshop courses, the most comprehensive and best organized is Unmesh Dinda's Photoshop Easy. It's a bit expensive but well worth if you want to understand Photoshop from the bottom up. I use UnMesh's color enhancement techniques every time I open Photoshop.

My library gives free access to LinkedIn Learning where you can find Julianne Kost's excellent course, Photoshop for Photographers – a good one to try if you don't want to shell out for Photoshop Easy.
 
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If you consider all of the expenses of photography $10 a month for Lightroom and Photoshop are an incredible bargain. The workaround you have figured out sounds like a huge headache to me. also, importing 30,000 photos into Lightroom will not take as long as you might think.
 
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James C. said:
After doing a LOT of research, and thinking about getting a Nikon Z8, I finally decided to get one. I was very happy when my brand new Nikon Z8 arrived a couple of days ago. Imagine my shock and disappointment when I imported my first uncompressed RAW photos into the Apple "Photos" app on my Mac and saw just blank, grey squares where the images' thumbnails should have been!

I use the Photos app for sorting, cataloging (by species), and simple editing of my bird/wildlife photos. For more detailed editing, I use Affinity Photo 2. (Affinity Photo 2 doesn't seem to have any problems working with Z8 uncompressed RAW photos, by the way.) But if I can't SEE the photos that I've just imported, I AM STUCK!

I have since learned of others here on BCG having the same issue, and not just with Apple Photos on their Macs, but other 3rd party photo editing apps (e.g., Adobe Lightroom).

Now I am in a real quandary! I just spent thousands of dollars on a camera (and accessories) that produces RAW photos that are nearly unusable in my current workflow. I guess I can go back to using my D500 so that I have USABLE photos until Nikon and most of the 3rd party app developers make their software work with Z8 photos. But how long will THAT take?

I realize that with any new hardware or software, one puts themselves on the "bleeding edge" of technology and unexpected problems (and their related frustrations) are why it is called "the bleeding edge." I'm just wondering, do I:

1) hang up the Z8 and go back to using my D500 for however long it takes for this issue to be resolved, or
2) go out and use the Z8 and take photos that I know I can't easily review & sort through on my computer?

Thanks for any useful suggestions.

p.s. I have already sent feedback to Apple about this problem. I would suggest that any other Mac users who've run into this Z8 RAW roadblock also send Apple feedback. With luck, the more people who tell them about this problem (possibly) the sooner it will be fixed. Here's the link: www.apple.com/feedback
Click to expand...
Until Adobe catches up i'm in the same predicament.
May be the same as on the PC where you can download a codec to view the NEF files in file manager ... 🦘
 
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Photos is a Data Base program that relabels photos for iCloud storage. I would think the ability to view Z8 RAW files in Photos is the only thing affected and will be fixed if you use Photos for storage. The files are probably fine, just not visible in Photos until the next version is released.

I ran into problems early with Photos not playing nice with photo editing software, so I download and back up manually.
 
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