Hmm… That could totally work! I already am a Dropbox user, but I would likely have a seperate SC Dropbox account that Andrew and I share. When creating the request, we could put a file request link in the Shoot to Serve request, and Pro members could directly upload the DMG or RAW files to us. The only question would be whether or not this would replace the current method for submission. Why would we need everyone to submit both JPEG and RAW files? Dropbox is a one way street however, so it might be a good idea to submit both ways so that other Pro members can see photos submitted, and the conversation could continue from that.
There is one flaw in the idea that this method of dual-submission would fix. I do not often have the ability to access the internet more than once over the weekend, (this week is an obvious exception) meaning I could not look at the photos and then wait for a while after requesting for RAW files to get them. If everyone submitted the RAW photos along with the JPEGs, this wouldn’t be a problem! I couldn’t figure out a way to fix this flaw, so thanks @buddingphotographer for this great idea! I’ve used Dropbox a long time, but never knew about that feature! (Probably because I mostly deal with sending files to a desktop computer rather than to others!)
As far as any inappropriate ads, I’ve used Dropbox for a long time, and I have yet to even see ONE ad. I honestly don’t think that’ll be a problem!
I think that it would actually be a huge mistake to handle RAW files within the forum. To put it simply, RAW files aren’t small, and the browser load time when trying to look at an image that was submitted would be atrocious, not to mention the data bill you could rack up! This solution sounds like a good one to me, so I’ll try to start the legwork on this for the next Opportunity that’ll be releasing Monday!
As far as my software compatibility with RAW, I have it. Ever since iOS 10 released fully supporting RAW, software developers started introducing compatibility, and when the reason for the support was revealed (the iPhone 7 shoots can shoot in RAW) compatibility exploded everywhere. In the unlikely event that an app doesn’t support RAW, I could always convert the image into a PNG or JPEG with Pixelmator! (or PSD! Yes, I have apps that support that too.) The real question isn’t whether it will work or not, but whether or not I’love see a quality difference in my work on a mobile machine! I’ve not done an editing comparison between an identical RAW and JPEG photo, so I’ll try to do that the first chance I get and include that information in the next VP Explanation.