RAW Photos Banned By Reuters

Aiming for authenticity in news reporting – so they suggest – Reuters has banned the submission of RAW photos from photographers working with them in the field. This ruling has been passed down to freelance contributors to Reuters, and was released as a note from the news agency to freelance photographers that'd worked with them in the past. Photographers must now only submit photos to Reuters that were originally saved AS jpg files to their camera. RAW files will be turned away.

"As eyewitness accounts of events covered by dedicated and responsible journalists, Reuters Pictures must reflect reality," said a Reuters representative speaking with Petapixel this week about the situation. "While we aim for photography of the highest aesthetic quality, our goal is not to artistically interpret the news."

The following note was sent out to freelance photographers associated with Reuters this week:

"Hi,

I'd like to pass on a note of request to our freelance contributors due to a worldwide policy change.. In future, please don't send photos to Reuters that were processed from RAW or CR2 files. If you want to shoot raw images that's fine, just take JPEGs at the same time. Only send us the photos that were originally JPEGs, with minimal processing (cropping, correcting levels, etc).

Cheers"

Reuters also bans the use of CR2, NEF, and DNG files in sending in files on a freelance basis. JPEG appears to be the way to go from this point forward.

For those of you out there looking for a solution to this situation – if you want to shoot in RAW for yourself AND have a file left over to send to Reuters – you could always just shoot in RAW + JPG. Supposing you're a professional photographer, you already know whether or not your camera has the ability to shoot both kinds of files with one tap of the shutter – now you'll just have to train yourself to be OK with it.