Picture Batch ORF to JPG
ORF to JPG
ORF is what Olympus wrote and what OM System still writes, from the E-1 through the whole Micro Four Thirds range. It is a TIFF-based container with Olympus's own maker notes describing the sensor, and while it is one of the better-documented proprietary raw formats, almost nothing outside photo software will open one. This page decodes the sensor data properly and writes a JPEG, locally.
Drop ORF images here
ORF files — or any of PNG, JPEG, WebP, AVIF, BMP, ICO, TIFF, GIF or camera raw (CR2, CR3, NEF, ARW, DNG, RAF, RW2). Everything runs on this device.
Your images never leave this device. They are decoded and re-encoded by your own browser, and the security policy on every page blocks this site from sending them anywhere.
Lossy, no transparency, opens absolutely everywhere, small for photographs.
The standard range for photographs. Hard to distinguish from the original.
Images keep their original dimensions.
JPEG cannot store transparency. Nothing in the queue currently has transparent pixels, so this has no effect yet.
Exif is carried across where both formats can hold it. Nothing currently in the queue has any.
Every pixel gets its two missing colours interpolated from its neighbours, at the full sensor resolution. The slower and more detailed option.
The value your camera recorded when the shutter fired — what you saw on the back of the camera.
Camera, lens, exposure and capture time are written into the JPEG when those fields are present. The file details show whether GPS data exists, but coordinates are deliberately not written, and colour comes out as sRGB.
What happens to your image
Expect a much smaller file than a lossless source, at the cost of some detail.
| Property | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Transparency | Preserved: ORF images have no transparency to lose. |
| Image quality | Partly preserved: JPEG is lossy: the image is re-compressed and detail is discarded to make the file smaller. The quality control decides how much. |
| Colour | Partly preserved: Converted to sRGB. Decoding an image colour-manages it into the browser's own space, so the output is sRGB and is left untagged, which every viewer reads as sRGB. A wide-gamut source is reported before conversion. |
| Exif metadata | Preserved: Carried across if you leave metadata switched on, or removed completely if you switch it off. Camera, date and any location tag travel together. |
| Orientation | Preserved: Applied to the pixels, and the tag is reset to upright afterwards so nothing rotates the image a second time. |
Four Thirds sensors and what that means for the conversion
A Micro Four Thirds sensor is smaller than the one in a full-frame camera, which means smaller photosites, which means more visible noise at a given ISO. That is physics rather than a defect, and it matters here because your camera hides a good deal of it when it makes a JPEG, and a raw conversion does not.
A converted ORF from a high-ISO shot will look noisier than the camera's own JPEG of the same frame. Nothing has gone wrong: you are seeing the sensor data without the noise reduction the camera applies. For files where that matters, raw software with a noise reduction stage is the right tool.
The lens corrections are not in the pixels
Micro Four Thirds leans on software correction more than most systems. Many of its lenses — especially the compact zooms and the wide primes — are designed with noticeable barrel distortion that the camera and raw software correct automatically using data stored in the file.
This is a converter and does not apply those corrections. A converted ORF from a lens that relies on them will show more distortion than the camera's JPEG did, and may show slight darkening in the corners. That is what the sensor actually recorded, and it is worth knowing rather than discovering.
When those fields are present and readable, the body, lens, focal length, exposure and capture time are assembled into a standard metadata block. The file details show what was actually found.
High Res Shot and other multi-frame modes
Olympus and OM System bodies can write special multi-frame raw files, including High Res Shot, Live Composite and in-camera HDR modes. Support varies by body and by how the composite is stored. When the decoder exposes a single image, that image converts; otherwise the file fails explicitly rather than returning an unrelated preview as a normal result.
If something goes wrong
The corners look darker than in the camera's JPEG.
Vignetting correction, applied by the camera and not by a converter.
What to do: Expected. Any raw editor with Micro Four Thirds lens profiles will correct it; this page deliberately does not modify the pixels beyond decoding them.
Straight lines bow outwards near the edge of the frame.
Uncorrected lens distortion, as above. Some Micro Four Thirds lenses have a great deal of it by design.
What to do: Same answer: this is the raw data. Correcting it needs the lens profile, which is a raw editor's job rather than a converter's.
A .ORF file is not recognised.
Either a body newer than this decoder, or a truncated copy. Olympus files use one of three container signatures and all three are recognised, so a genuine ORF is identified as one.
What to do: The message says what was found. Adobe's free DNG Converter is the reliable route for a camera too new to be known here.
Questions
Does this work for OM System files as well as Olympus?
Yes. OM System bodies write the same ORF format — the company changed name, not format — and they are recognised from the file contents.
Will the aspect ratio be right?
Yes. Four Thirds sensors are 4:3, and if you set a different aspect ratio in the camera the raw file still holds the full sensor area. The queue shows the exact dimensions before conversion so a wider-than-expected image is not a surprise.
Can I convert a whole holiday's worth at once?
You can queue multiple ORF files and download the completed results together. Decode time and the safe batch size depend on the camera, compression, browser and available memory, so very large collections are best converted in smaller groups.