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Image MIME Reference
Canon-CRW

Canon Raw Format

image/x-canon-crw
VS

Khronos Texture

image/ktx
KTX

A complete technical comparison of Canon Raw Format and Khronos Texture — covering compression, feature support, browser compatibility, magic bytes, and when to choose each format.

Equal browser support

Feature Support

Feature Canon-CRW KTX
Transparency (Alpha) ✕ No Yes
Animation Support ✕ No ✕ No
Progressive Loading ✕ No ✕ No
HDR Support Yes Yes
EXIF Metadata Yes ✕ No
ICC Color Profile ✕ No ✕ No
Canon Raw Format
image/x-canon-crw
Extension
.crw
Container CIFF (Camera Image File Format)
Compression Lossless JPEG (ITU-T81)
Algorithm
Lossless JPEG
Color Depth 10-bit (Per Channel), 12-bit (Per Channel)
Developed by Canon Inc.
Released 1998
Magic Bytes
49 49 1A 00 00 00 (Header) / 48 45 41 50 43 43 44 52 (HEAPCCDR signature near end)
Full Canon-CRW reference →
Khronos Texture
image/ktx
Extension
.ktx
Container KTX (Khronos Texture 1.1)
Compression Uncompressed / GPU Compressed (ASTC, ETC, BCn, PVRTC)
Algorithm
ASTCETC1 / ETC2BCn (DXT)PVRTCBasis Universal (in KTX2)
Color Depth 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit (Integer/Float)
Developed by Khronos Group
Released 2010
Magic Bytes
AB 4B 54 58 20 31 31 BB 0D 0A 1A 0A
Full KTX reference →

Browser Support Comparison

Browser Canon-CRW KTX
Chrome Chrome
✕ ✕
Firefox Firefox
✕ ✕
Safari Safari
✕ ✕
Edge Edge
✕ ✕
IE IE (Legacy)
✕ ✕
Canon-CRW

Canon-CRW Strengths

  • Preserves original raw sensor data from foundational early digital SLR cameras, allowing for modern noise reduction and demosaicing algorithms to extract better images than software could in 2003
  • Files are remarkably small (often 6-8 MB) compared to modern 40MB+ raw files due to the lower megapixel count of early sensors
Limitations
  • Completely obsolete and utilizes the idiosyncratic CIFF structure rather than the modern, standardized TIFF/EP structure
  • Cannot be natively viewed in web browsers or standard operating system image viewers without specialized codecs
  • Less robust metadata support compared to modern CR2 or CR3 formats
KTX

KTX Strengths

  • Enables direct-to-GPU texture uploading, drastically reducing load times and CPU overhead in 3D applications
  • Supports complex texture types natively (mipmaps, cubemaps, 3D volumes, texture arrays)
  • Standardized across major Khronos APIs (OpenGL, Vulkan, WebGL) unlike vendor-specific formats like DDS
Limitations
  • Requires custom JavaScript loaders to parse and display on the web
  • Zero native support in consumer image viewers or 2D photo editing software
  • Format fragmentation: a KTX file containing an ASTC payload will fail to render on hardware that only supports BCn compression (KTX2 and Basis Universal solve this)

When to choose which format

Canon-CRW
Use Canon-CRW when…
  • Historical Digital Photography (2000-2004)
  • Non-destructive Image Post-Processing
  • Raw Imaging Archival
KTX
Use KTX when…
  • Real-time 3D Graphics
  • WebGL / WebGPU Applications
  • Mobile Games
  • Virtual/Augmented Reality (VR/AR)

More comparisons

Canon-CRW vs ACES → KTX vs ACES → Canon-CRW vs APNG → KTX vs APNG → Canon-CRW vs AVCI → KTX vs AVCI → Canon-CRW vs AVCS → KTX vs AVCS → Canon-CRW vs AVIF → KTX vs AVIF → All comparisons →
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