Skip to content

File Format Support

File Format Support

Read

  • Acorn
  • BMP
  • GIF
  • HEIC/HEIF:on 10.13.4 and later
  • ICO
  • JPEG
  • JPEG 2K
  • JPEG-XL
  • PDF
  • PNG
  • PSD
  • RAW
  • TGA
  • TIFF
  • WebP

...and just about any other format the MacOS can read (it's a super long list).

Write

  • GIF
  • HEIC/HEIF:on 10.13.4 and later
  • JPEG
  • JPEG (MozJPEG)
  • JPEG 2K
  • JPEG-XL
  • PDF
  • PNG
  • PSD (Single Layer)
  • TIFF
  • TGA
  • WebP

PDFs

PDFs can be either a vector or raster image, click here to learn more about the difference between vector and raster. Vector PDFs brought into Retrobatch will remain in vector format under select operations such as splitting a multipage PDF into single page PDFs. PDF workflows such as adding a watermark, adding color adjustments or color effects, and combining raster images to create a multipage PDF will result in a raster PDF.

When writing an image as a PDF, the size of the PDF is determined by the DPI of the image. The larger the DPI, the smaller the PDF dimensions will be, but the quality of it will remain the same. 72 DPI is the default DPI for PDFs. For example, if you have a 72 pixel wide image, with the DPI set to 72, and write it as a PDF, the PDF will be 1 inch wide. If the DPI of the image is set to 144, the PDF will be .5 inches wide.

Vector PDF files default to 72 DPI when converting to a bitmap or raster file. To increase the DPI for better resolution, add a 'Set DPI' node after the Read Files node containing the PDF file. Increase the DPI as desired.

File Formats that Support Transparency

When writing images, choose from PDF, PNG, or TIFF to retain transparency.

How to Remove Alpha Channel when Writing images

In the 'Write Images' node, have HEIC, PNG or TIFF selected as the file type to convert to, and check the box for 'Remove alpha channel if opaque'.

Supported RAW Files

Retrobatch has the ability to read RAW files that are supported by Mac OS X. A list of supported RAW formats can be found here.