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How to open .B16 files on Mac

To open .B16 files on Mac, try opening the file with XnView/XnView MP if it is available on your Mac installation, since XnView lists PCO .b16 among supported formats.

Step-by-step instructions

  1. Try opening the file with XnView/XnView MP if it is available on your Mac installation, since XnView lists PCO .b16 among supported formats.
  2. If the file does not open, transfer it to a workstation that has Excelitas/PCO conversion software and export it to a common format.
  3. Avoid using Preview as the only test; standard macOS image preview tools are not expected to understand this proprietary camera format.

Alternative methods

  • Open .B16 in a browser-based viewer if desktop apps fail.
  • Try opening .B16 on Mac with a secondary app to rule out app-specific issues.
  • Convert .B16 only with trusted tools when direct opening is not possible.

Common issues

The .B16 file does not open in Photos, Preview, or a web browser

B16 is a specialized PCO camera image format, not a common consumer photo format.

  1. Open it with PCO-compatible software such as pco.camware, pco.fileconversion, or a viewer that lists PCO .b16 support such as XnView.
  2. If you only need to view or share it, convert or export it to a standard format using compatible software.
  3. Do not rename .b16 to .jpg, .png, or .tif; that does not convert the image data.

The image looks black, washed out, or very low contrast

B16 files store 16-bit linear image data, so a viewer may need to scale the intensity range before the image looks normal on a screen.

  1. Look for display controls such as auto-levels, brightness/contrast, histogram stretch, or bit-depth scaling in your viewer.
  2. When exporting, choose settings that preserve the data if measurement accuracy matters, such as a high-bit-depth output format.
  3. If the image is for presentation only, export a contrast-adjusted copy rather than overwriting the original raw file.

Software says the file is not a valid B16 file

The file may be incomplete, corrupted, mislabeled, or not actually a PCO B16 image. The registered format uses a PCO- ASCII identifier.

  1. Confirm the file was fully copied or downloaded from the acquisition computer.
  2. Ask the sender whether it came from a PCO camera or pco.camware workflow.
  3. If you have technical tools, check whether the file begins with the expected PCO- identifier before troubleshooting the viewer.

You need to use the data in MATLAB or another analysis workflow

General image libraries may not read B16 automatically, so a format-specific importer may be needed.

  1. Use a B16 reader that follows the PCO manual structure, such as the MATLAB Central readB16 function if appropriate for your workflow.
  2. Validate imported dimensions, bit depth, and pixel values against the acquisition settings.
  3. For long-term exchange, consider converting to a documented scientific image format while preserving the original .B16 file.

Security note

B16 is an image data format and is not known from the cited sources as a macro or script-carrying format, but malformed image files can still trigger bugs in vulnerable viewers, so use up-to-date software.

Back to .B16 extension page