Sequoia and Olympus raw files issue

This is absolutely appalling!! Cant load .orf files on my MacBook Air OR iPad Air 2024 since the latest update. My solution is somewhat reactive, but.... as of tonight I am swinging back to Microsoft. All my apple products will be sold off effective immediately. I have lost faith and am over it.

I get Finder thumbnails for .jpg, .heic, .cr2, .cr3, .dng but not for .orf in Sequoia. The Finder preview below, QuickLook and Preview.app can display the .orf image from this sample.

https://www.dpreview.com/sample-galleries/5929568125/olympus-om-d-e-m10-mark-iv-sample-gallery-dpreview-tv/4124498779

Sequoia 15.1 does not display .orf thumbnails for me either (I did not test if safe mode could fix this, though).

This workaround might help: my son takes hundreds of raw .cr3 from special occasions and my duty is to filter the 5-10 % keepers for post-pressing with Lightroom.

Lightroom itself is quite fast to display raw but with exiftool it is a breeze to extract the embedded previews from the raw and browse them with GraphicConverter or just via the Finder. Some raw images might have several low-high resolution previews and the command below extracts the best resolution. That command works also for that .orf.

exiftool -config example.config -m -p '${BigImage;SetTags("All:All")}' -b -w _preview.jpg .

Just download and put the "example.config" file to the same folder as the raw images and run that command.

https://github.com/exiftool/exiftool/tree/master/config_files

https://exiftool.org/forum/index.php?topic=15905.msg85511#msg85511

https://www.dpreview.com/sample-galleries/5929568125/olympus-om-d-e-m10-mark-iv-sample-gallery-dpreview-tv/4124498779

I have the same issue , worked for few days on 15.1 and now not supporting it!

Apple support can't solve it

I updated to macOS Sequoia last week and today I realised that the thumbnails are not showing?! Like cjay26, I edit off of Finder and the lack of support for OM/Olympus ORF files is a huge problem?!

The only workaround I have found so far is to convert them to DNG with Bridge and then the DNGs show up with thumbnails 🤷‍♂️

Also - I am guessing that the lack of OS support for ORF files somehow messes up Bridge as well, because random folders fail to load the Filters I use for sorting images - focal length, ISO, etc - certain folders just fail to load the list of Filters even tho they have been Checked to display.

I wrote an Automator tool which uses Adobe DNG converter and exiftool to create custom Finder icons for any camera supported by Camera RAW.

See FYI: Generate custom Finder icon for RAW … - Apple Community

Click here for a short demo of set RAW Preview.

- Pie Lover

I wrote an Automator tool which uses Adobe DNG converter and exiftool to create custom Finder icons for any camera supported by Camera RAW.

See FYI: Generate custom Finder icon for RAW … - Apple Community

Click here for a short demo of set RAW Preview.

- Pie Lover

Does disabling HDR PQ help also with .orf?

"it seems that macOS Sequoia 15.1 does not properly handle the CR3 RAW format with the HDR PQ colour space"

https://exiftool.org/forum/index.php?topic=16668.msg89616#msg89616

"disabling HDR PQ for CR3 RAW should restore the thumbnail function"

QuickLook Thumbnail generation problems w… - Apple Community

I want to announce that as of the latest update - macOS 15.1 (24B83) - ORF files are again showing up with glorious thumbnails in Finder! 🎉

Can you guys confirm that it works for you too?

Another possibilty: I'm using an app called Raw Right Away to show my Nikon Z8's NEF thumbnails and allow QuickLook on NEF files. I installed it in Sonoma and it still works in Sequoia. It doesn't make the files themselves, compatible, but it really helps in looking through them.

I use the jpg versions to curate the shoot in Photos, as Matti uses GraphcConverter, so then I know which ones to edit with Lightroom.

For Canon, with HDR PQ enabled, the CR3 file contains an embedded HEIC preview. I suspect that this is the root cause of the thumbnail issue in this specific case. I have no direct knowledge about Olympus raw files.

- Pie Lover