International news agency Reuters has just announced a new policy that forbids freelance photographers from submitting images captured in the RAW file format. From now on, all freelancers must submit photos that were originally taken and stored on their cameras as JPEG files.
Speaking with PetaPixel, the agency says that the decision was made because RAW photos are more easily manipulated and edited.
"As eyewitness accounts of events covered by dedicated and responsible journalists, Reuters Pictures must reflect reality." Said a Reuters spokesperson to PetaPixel. "While we aim for photography of the highest aesthetic quality, our goal is not to artistically interpret the news."
"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)."
The email sent to all of the group's freelance contributors reads.
RAW photos are also considerably larger and often require more tweaking than JPEG files, which was another factor taken into account. The Verge's Sam Byford explains:
"Almost all RAW images need some degree of processing, because the colors tend to be too flat right out of the camera, and since there's so much more data the files are much larger - this means they're slower to send and more taxing to process."
"Speed is also very important to us. We have therefore asked our photographers to skip labour and time consuming processes to get our pictures to our clients faster." Said the spokesperson.
Whether this decision will be a benefit to the quality of Reuters reporting remains to be seen.
