GIMP can open most but not all RAW file formats offered by camera manufacturers. As a start, you can use GIMP for editing these images directly, but only with a color depth of 24 bits (8 bits per channel). However, if you want to develop your digital negatives with the original color depth of 16 bits per channel (rather than 8 bits) in order to make fine-tuned corrections and/or print a higher-quality photo, you’ll have to depend on the RawPhoto or UFRaw plug-in. Once you’ve integrated one of these plug-ins into GIMP, it will automatically become active when you open a RAW file with GIMP. Let’s first take a look at the UFRaw plug-in since it can be installed at a later point in time, as described in Converting Camera RAW Image Formats under Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux: Freeware and Plug-Ins.