Getting Started - MergeRAW

Your First Merge

Select your photos in Lightroom Classic's Library module, then choose Export › Merge Raw Files from the right-click menu, or File › Plug-in Extras › Merge Raw Files.

Choose an alignment mode and blend mode, then click OK. The new DNG appears in your catalog beside the originals, which remain unchanged. Hover over any option for a quick explanation.

If your current source view hides the result, such as Previous Import, MergeRAW switches to the output folder and selects the new DNG.

Use raw or DNG files from the same camera with matching dimensions. See installation for setup, including Adobe DNG Converter.

Smooth water or clouds: No Alignment + Normal, with the camera on a tripod.
Reduce handheld noise: Auto Align + Normal. For a low-light burst, try Night Align + Median.
Remove people from a scene: Auto Align + Median. Leave time between shots for people to move.

Alignment Mode

Choose based on how the camera or subject moved between shots.

No Alignment - Tripod

For a steady tripod or deliberate multiple exposures. Focus stacks still get focus-breathing correction; use Auto Align if the camera also moved.

Auto Align - Use All Frames

For handheld photos or a bumped tripod. Aligns the photos and keeps every frame.

Night Align - Smart Frame Selection

For low-light handheld bursts at matching exposures. Drops blurry or poorly aligned frames. Start with Median for a cleaner, sharper result; choose Normal to blur motion or Deghost to freeze it. Use Auto Align for exposure brackets.

Align Stars - Sky Tracking

For night-sky sequences from a fixed tripod. Choose a Fixed Stars blend for pinpoint stars, or Star Trails & Foreground for trails over a clean landscape.

Pixel Shift

For your camera's pixel-shift or high-resolution sequences: fuller color detail and, in some modes, extra resolution. Select one complete sequence only. Most supported cameras use 4, 8, 16 or 32 frames; Fujifilm X-Trans uses 5 or 20. Choose Normal, or Deghost if something moved.

Keep separate captures in separate merges: selecting a 4-shot set and a 16-shot set together does not make one 20-shot sequence. To process several Lightroom stacks, use Merge Raw Files (Advanced) › Batch Mode › Merge Each Stack. Sony 4- and 16-shot sets use the corrected Sony shift pattern in 2.4.0.

Blend Mode

Choose the result you want for motion, noise or depth of field. Available blends depend on the alignment mode.

Normal - Blur Motion

Reduces noise and softens movement. Use it for smoother water, clouds or traffic, or a cleaner image of a still subject.

Deghost - Freeze Motion

Reduces noise while keeping moving subjects from your active photo. Useful for people or wind-blown leaves. With Night Align, MergeRAW chooses the reference photo automatically.

Median - Remove Motion

Removes passing people, cars and other moving objects when each part of the background is clear in most shots. Under Night Align, use it for a cleaner handheld burst.

Lighten - Star Trails & Multi Exposure

Builds up bright subjects against a dark background: star trails, fireworks or light painting. Automatic repair helps smooth trail joins and reduce false color. See Star Trails for the two workflow choices.

Darken - Multi Exposure on Light Background

Builds up dark subjects against a bright background, such as birds against snow.

Focus Stacking

Combines a focus bracket into one photo with greater depth of field. Shoot near to far, covering everything you want sharp. Use Tripod for a fixed camera or Auto Align for camera movement. Moving subjects and areas that were never in focus can still look soft or show artifacts.

For manually focused sets, MergeRAW uses supported lens-position or focus-distance metadata to order the frames. Automatic camera brackets keep capture order; if usable focus metadata is missing, capture order is the fallback. Keep each focus sequence separate. Both focus modes preserve the source exposure metadata.

Focus Stacking - Retain Extra Detail

Try this when the standard focus stack leaves fine texture soft, especially bark, foliage or stone. It takes more time and memory.

HDR Exposure Brackets

Select the bracket and make the exposure you want as the reference the active photo. Choose No Alignment - Tripod for a steady camera, or Auto Align for camera movement. Use Normal for a still scene or Deghost when subjects move.

MergeRAW matches exposure levels and uses unclipped sources where possible. Partly blown highlights keep their remaining measured color channels for further recovery in Lightroom. A same-exposure burst keeps ordinary averaging for noise reduction. Movement and heavily clipped reference frames can still limit the result; inspect foliage and bright edges.

Fujifilm Multi-Exposure RAFs

Select the original HDR RAF as a single Lightroom photo and merge it normally. MergeRAW detects its embedded exposures and extracts them before conversion. Install Adobe DNG Converter first; it is required for these merges in Auto, Safe and Sharper. Only the finished DNG is added to the catalog.

The container's first embedded frame supplies the reference. To choose another exposure, use Split Raw File first, then select the extracted frames. Keep the original RAF: Lightroom DNG export or direct conversion of the unsplit RAF can retain only the first exposure.

Pinpoint Stars and Sharp Landscapes

Choose Align Stars - Sky Tracking, then pick the blend for your scene. The Fixed Stars blends reduce noise and reject satellite and aircraft trails.

Normal - Fixed Stars: keeps stars sharp; the landscape may blur. Use it when only the sky matters.
Basic Mask - Fixed Stars & Foreground: keeps both stars and landscape sharp, without an AI model.
AI Mask - Fixed Stars & Foreground: the better choice for a complicated skyline with trees, branches or rocky ridges.

With either mask blend, you can include a longer exposure or light-painted frame for a brighter foreground. Check fine edges along the skyline in the result.

AI blends require an optional, one-time download of about 86 MB, with your permission. Processing stays on your computer, works offline, and sends no photos or metadata. You can disable AI or delete the model in Plug-in Manager › Ryan's Raw Tools › AI Features.

Built with DINOv3, published by Meta Platforms, Inc., under the DINOv3 License Agreement. A copy of the license is saved with the model.

Star Trails

Keep the camera on a stable tripod and minimize gaps between exposures. Choose based on foreground noise, rather than a fixed number of frames.

Choose	When to use it
No Alignment - Tripod + Lighten - Star Trails & Multi Exposure	A straightforward trail stack when individual exposures already look clean. It does not reduce foreground noise.
Align Stars - Sky Tracking + AI Mask - Star Trails & Foreground	Many short exposures with a dark or noisy landscape. Gives a cleaner foreground and preserves light painting while leaving the stars as trails.

Light painting within the normal sky sequence can contribute to both the trails and foreground. Longer foreground exposures and detached frames stay out of the trails. The AI option uses the same optional model as the Fixed Stars blend. Check the skyline around branches and other fine detail.

The Advanced Dialog

The MergeRAW advanced merge dialog, including Output Options

Choose Merge Raw Files (Advanced) for batch processing and optional corrections. The defaults match the simple dialog.

Batch Mode

Merge All Photos: one DNG from the whole selection.
Merge Each Stack: one DNG per Lightroom stack. Lightroom's Auto-Stack by Capture Time can help group bursts.
Merge Each Directory: one DNG per folder.
Process Each Photo: apply corrections separately to every photo, without merging. Available with No Alignment - Tripod.

Hot Pixel Removal

Repairs hot pixels without a dark frame. Leave it on Automatic for most photos. Choose Night Sky to force repair while protecting stars, or Daylight Long Exposure for daytime scenes. Avoid Daylight for stars or tiny bright subjects. Off disables this repair; supplied dark frames still apply.

Dark Frame(s)

Use lens-cap exposures taken at matching settings and temperature to remove hot pixels. Particularly useful for long exposures and astrophotography.

Flat Field Frame(s)

Use photos of an evenly lit blank surface, taken with the same lens and aperture, to correct vignetting and corner color shifts. Useful for copy and reproduction work. This feature is experimental; check the corners of the result.

Choosing Dark and Flat Frames

Filter the selected Library photos by Filename, Directory, Color or Stars, or choose a File on Disk or Directory on Disk. Library calibration frames are excluded from the main merge and shared across batch groups. Files chosen from disk may need importing into the catalog; MergeRAW asks first, and they remain there afterwards.

Demosaic Mode

Auto: the default for most photos. For X-Trans merges that need RGB processing, it uses Adobe's demosaic when DNG Converter is installed.
Sharper: try it for finer detail, or as an alternative raw conversion for a single photo. On X-Trans, it also applies localized false-color and moiré repair to repeating detail. This adds processing time.
Safe: try it if you see color artifacts. Requires Adobe DNG Converter and takes longer.

Hot Pixel Removal and Demosaic Mode are unavailable with Pixel Shift.

Output Options

Remove Lens Profile: removes the built-in profile and lens correction settings from the merged DNG. Use it when you want to handle lens correction yourself; distortion and vignetting may become visible. Off by default.
Update Exposure EXIF: updates ISO and exposure time to describe the combined exposure. Turn it off to retain source values. On by default; always disabled for Pixel Shift, Darken and both focus-stacking modes.

The Advanced dialog remembers these choices. The simple dialog always uses the defaults.

Settings and Troubleshooting

Open File › Plug-in Manager › Ryan's Raw Tools for settings.

Scratch folder: choose a fast drive with plenty of free space for temporary files.
Language: follow Lightroom's language or choose another for MergeRAW dialogs.
Output compatibility: the default gives the smallest files. Use Common (DNG 1.7.0) for DXO PhotoLab, or Compatible (DNG 1.4.0) for older software. Image quality is unchanged.
Open Log: shows what happened in the last merge, including skipped frames. Save it before running another merge.

Night Align normally uses fewer frames than you selected. If it drops too many, try a faster shutter speed. Star tracking needs enough visible stars in most frames; cloud or very short exposures can prevent alignment.

For help, email mergeraw@mackman.net with MergeRAW in the subject and attach the log.

TIFFs from the Command Line

The command-line tool also merges unsigned 8-bit or 16-bit RGB and grayscale TIFFs, without Adobe DNG Converter. Lightroom's merge dialogs accept raw and DNG files only.

TIFFs must have matching dimensions and all be RGB or all grayscale. Keep them separate from RAW/DNG inputs. Embed a standard color profile such as sRGB, Adobe RGB, ProPhoto RGB or Display P3. Untagged RGB is treated as sRGB; untagged grayscale uses gamma 2.2.

CMYK, palette, alpha-channel, multi-page and floating-point TIFFs are unsupported. Convert lookup-table profiles to a standard working space first. The result is a DNG, but it cannot restore raw data lost during TIFF export.

Editing Sky Masks and Focus Depth Maps

For manual control over a skyline or a focus-stack boundary, the command-line tool can export a map for editing and reuse it in a new merge. Sky masks select sky versus foreground; focus depth maps select which source photo supplies each area. See the command-line reference for formats and save/edit/load examples. These controls are not in the Lightroom dialogs.

Split Raw File

Extract individual exposures from a Pentax multi-frame DNG (HDR or pixel shift) or a Fujifilm multi-exposure RAF. This tool reads the original container directly and does not need Adobe DNG Converter.

Select the original photo in Lightroom Classic.
Choose File › Plug-in Extras › Split Raw File, or the Split Raw File export preset.
Find the extracted files directly beside the original, named with its basename followed by -1, -2, -3, and so on. For example, DSC10975.RAF produces DSC10975-1.RAF, DSC10975-2.RAF, and DSC10975-3.RAF. Pentax frames are DNGs; Fujifilm frames remain RAFs. Every extracted frame is imported into Lightroom with the source's develop settings.

The original and any existing files are preserved. If an output filename already exists, Lightroom adds another numeric suffix to make it unique. Single-exposure files and other raw containers are not supported. Fujifilm embedded previews approximately reflect each exposure's brightness; let Lightroom render each raw frame for the actual detail.

From the command line, use mergeraw -split new-folder original.RAF or a supported Pentax DNG. The output folder must not already exist; see the CLI reference.

The Other Tools

Remove Built-In Profile removes mandatory lens corrections.
Edit Raw in Photoshop lets you edit a raw photo in Photoshop and continue developing it in Lightroom.
Fix IR PDAF Banding removes row banding from infrared and full-spectrum conversions.