How to open a Canon CR3 raw file on Windows

CR3 is the raw format Canon has used since the EOS M50 in 2018, and Windows cannot decode it out of the box. Install Microsoft’s free Raw Image Extension from the Microsoft Store and File Explorer shows thumbnails and the Photos app opens CR3 files. Canon’s free Digital Photo Professional develops them properly if you own the camera. If you only need a JPEG, remember that every CR3 already contains one, the preview the camera made when you took the picture, and it can be taken out as it is. RAW does that, or develops the raw data, in the browser tab, for one file or a card’s worth.

What a CR3 is

A raw file is the sensor’s readings before the camera made a picture of them: no white balance applied, no sharpening, no JPEG compression, and more tonal range than a JPEG can hold. Canon’s older raw format was CR2, a TIFF-based file. CR3 replaced it with a container based on the ISO base media format, the family MP4 and HEIC belong to, which is why software that read CR2 for years could not read CR3 until it was updated. Inside are the raw data, compressed losslessly (or lossily, for the smaller C-RAW option), the camera’s settings, and preview JPEGs, one of them full size.

The free Windows route

1. Open the Microsoft Store and search for Raw Image Extension, published by Microsoft. It needs Windows 10 version 1903 or later.
2. Install it. It is not an app; it adds a decoder that File Explorer and Photos use.
3. File Explorer now shows CR3 thumbnails, and Photos opens the files.

The extension is built on LibRaw, an open-source raw decoder, and it gains new cameras when it is updated. A body released after the extension’s last update may not be supported yet; Microsoft Store updates usually arrive on their own.

The other free routes

• Digital Photo Professional, Canon’s own raw developer, is free to owners of a Canon camera (it asks for the camera’s serial number to download) and applies Canon’s own picture styles and lens corrections, so its results match the camera’s JPEGs most closely.
• Adobe DNG Converter is free and turns CR3 files into DNG, an openly documented raw format that older versions of Lightroom and Photoshop, and many other programs, can read.
• Darktable and RawTherapee are free, open-source raw developers for Windows, Mac and Linux, both built on decoders that read CR3.

The JPEG already inside it

The camera embeds a full-size JPEG in every CR3 so it can show you the picture on its screen. It is the picture exactly as the camera would have saved it as a JPEG, with the camera’s white balance and picture style, and taking it out is instant because nothing has to be developed. It is also the way to get something out of a raw file that a developer refuses, for example from a camera newer than the software.

For a shoot where you want the camera’s look and not a raw edit, it is often the best answer. ExifTool extracts it from the command line with exiftool -b -JpgFromRaw file.CR3 > file.jpg (on some cameras the tag is -PreviewImage).

In the browser

RAW takes CR3 alongside CR2, NEF, ARW, DNG, RAF, ORF, RW2 and the other formats LibRaw reads, one file or a folder’s worth, and runs in the tab: the raw files are processed on your own device and not uploaded, which matters when a card holds four gigabytes of photos from somebody’s wedding. For each it can either take out the camera’s own JPEG, instantly, or develop the raw data with LibRaw, compiled to WebAssembly: white balance as the camera set it or worked out from the picture, a brightness setting, an optional size limit, and JPEG or PNG out.

It is a converter, not an editor. For developing a raw file by eye, with curves, local adjustments and noise reduction, use a raw developer; the OBSCURA Photo Editor is ours. And the same camera-support point applies: LibRaw reads CR3 from the cameras it knows, and a camera newer than the version on this site may not open until it is updated, in which case the embedded JPEG is still there.

Adding files and looking at them is free. Saving the JPEGs is part of OBSCURA Pro, or US$1 to save from one tool for a day.

What we checked: RAW’s test develops a DNG built for it, and reports a file without an embedded JPEG in words. We did not have a CR3 from a real camera to test against for this page, and it would be wrong to say we had; CR3 support is LibRaw’s, as it is in the Windows extension.