SFW to RB Converter

Export legacy photos as RB format online for free

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Memory Recovery

Those old Seattle FilmWorks photos deserve to be seen. Converting SFW to RB brings your personal photographs back to life.

Photo Rescue

Liberate 1990s mail-order photos from the extinct SFW format — convert them to RB for modern viewing, sharing, and printing.

Batch Support

Upload multiple SFW images and convert them all to RB in one session — no need to repeat the process for each individual file.

How to convert SFW to RB

1

Select files from Computer, Google Drive, Dropbox, URL or by dragging it on the page.

2

Choose rb or any other format you need as a result (more than 200 formats supported)

3

Let the file convert and you can download your rb file right afterwards

About formats

SFW is a proprietary image format created by Seattle FilmWorks (later PhotoWorks) for their Pictures on Disk mail-order photo service, active primarily from 1994 through the early 2000s. Customers who sent film to Seattle FilmWorks for developing could opt to receive their photos back on 3.5-inch floppy disks in addition to (or instead of) traditional prints. SFW files contained the scanned photographs in a JPEG-based encoding wrapped in a custom header, designed to be viewed through Seattle FilmWorks' proprietary desktop software. The service was notably popular in the mid-1990s, offering one of the most accessible ways for ordinary consumers to obtain digital versions of their film photographs before consumer scanners and digital cameras became affordable. SFW files typically contained modest-resolution scans appropriate for screen viewing and small prints — sufficient quality for the 640x480 and 800x600 monitor resolutions common at the time. One advantage of SFW files is their role as historical artifacts: for many families, SFW disks represent the only digital copies of film-era photographs from the 1990s, preserved on media that predates widespread home scanning and digital photography. The underlying JPEG data ensures reasonable image quality despite the proprietary wrapper. Extracting images from SFW files is straightforward: tools like XnView, ImageMagick, and specialized SFW-to-JPEG converters can strip the proprietary header and save the standard JPEG data, making these nostalgic files accessible on any modern device.
Developer: Seattle FilmWorks
Initial release: 1994
RB is the native ebook format of the Rocket eBook, one of the first commercially available dedicated e-reading devices, developed by NuvoMedia and released in October 1998. Founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning — who later co-founded Tesla Motors — NuvoMedia designed the Rocket eBook as a handheld device with a reflective LCD screen, capable of storing approximately ten books in its internal memory. The RB format packages HTML-based content along with embedded images, metadata, and a table of contents into a single binary container optimized for the device's limited hardware. Content was purchased and downloaded through NuvoMedia's RocketLibrarian desktop software. A notable advantage of the format was its early support for bookmarking, annotation, dictionary lookups, and adjustable font sizing — features now standard on modern e-readers but revolutionary in the late 1990s. The Rocket eBook demonstrated viable commercial demand for dedicated reading devices, paving the way for subsequent platforms from Sony, Amazon, and others. NuvoMedia was acquired by Gemstar-TV Guide International in 2000, which discontinued the device line in 2003. While RB files are largely a historical curiosity today, they can be converted to modern formats using ebook management tools, and the format remains significant as a pioneering chapter in the evolution of digital reading.
Developer: NuvoMedia
Initial release: 1998

Frequently Asked Questions

Why convert SFW to RB?

Seattle FilmWorks locked photos in a proprietary format. Converting SFW to RB frees your personal photographs for modern use.

What programs can open RB?

RocketBook readers and Calibre open RB ebooks. This legacy format was designed for the original NuvoMedia Rocket eBook device.

Is the conversion from SFW to RB lossless?

The conversion keeps your image data intact — RB does not introduce compression artifacts, ensuring the output matches the original closely.

How long does SFW to RB conversion take?

The process is fast — cloud-based processing handles SFW to RB conversion in seconds for standard-sized images, even on slower connections.

Can I convert multiple SFW images at once?

Absolutely. Add several SFW images at once, set RB as the output, and the converter processes them all in parallel for maximum efficiency.

Do I need the original SFW viewer software?

No — Convertio converts SFW independently of the original viewer. Upload the file directly and receive a standard RB output.