Is using Apple ProRAW worth it? We test it on the iPhone 12 Pro Max Comments
- vrvly
- g5f
Great stacked hdr jpegs are obviously more practical than non stacked raw you need to edit, in ideal situation you get better picture as phone get more information to compute from multiple pictures vs from one(less of noise, more detail).
If there was stacked hdr raw file with informations from color sensor and AI recommendation for colors etc., it would be obviously better file. Not that you would want to edit every picture.
Raw even in its one shot form is great in case your jpeg fail to come out good, which is mostly no happening in iphone. In sony however you can just compare edited raw vs their auto mode, in many cases edited raw is better.
So its not raw thats useless, but its brand which cannot get you best results most of time.
Hdr raw with additional info from phone sensors would be great for professional photographer as you can process it better with more time and power, simple non stacked raw from phone is still better than bad jpegs, but may be inferior if you compare 1 still image vs 12-stacked one, even in pro photography stacked picture means better picture because it removes noise from sensor.
Sony got slight advantage with its sensors taking great colors, but even that is useless if their optics got high distortion, or even missing entire 5x-10x fov what others got, the same as with iphone, even if jpeg, if you got some usable pic, its better than no lens.
- AnonD-940827
- 8pQ
LG Superfan, 20 Dec 2020I don't get the difference between this and just RAWRaw is raw. This is ai boosted raw. So actually not really raw.
- Shui8
- KZK
No sharpness + noise reduction processing, it will be lot better.
For now this is not ProRaw, more like AutoRaw.
- Anonymous
- JT5
SA Woodlawn, 20 Dec 2020There are advantages to both in my opinion:
Computational Photography has reached so far that... moreYou do not have accuracy if WB is wrong.
And foreground or background is brighter in the photo than it is actually.
Not even counting the brown sky often seen with night modes.
- Steve
- gM8
Pixels can do RAW+JPEG. Why didn't you test them out ?
- SA Woodlawn
- uZa
There are advantages to both in my opinion:
Computational Photography has reached so far that the phone manages the pin-point aacuracy in a second or so, and there is little to no hassle on our side. But the uncompressed data the RAW has might be very useful for photo-centric minds. All in all, both are fit for their own league.
- Anonymous
- Njd
So, it's useless
- AnonD-940827
- 8pQ
No different from ai raw on Android units. But gl trying to make another old thing, the brand new apple thing.
- dude111
- 8@Z
Nick Tagataka, 20 Dec 2020I really hope, for "unedited" DNG samples on this article, you guys used the desktop... moreYes. I've seen some comparisons in YT and it seems that apple is indeed applying too much noise reduction/oversharpening depending on the light conditions, being during night-mode the worse offender.
But given that this is computational photography (and not something physical like the sensor) it can actually improve over time. They just need to tweak their algorithms.
- Anonymous
- JT5
Firewarrior96, 20 Dec 2020lol it's been years since Raw+Jpeg shooting do exist on LG phones but no cares about it .... moreProRaw is RAW with some processing.
Has nothing to do with ability of doing jpeg+raw simultaniously.
Iphone cannot do it.
- dave
- r39
if only i see or understand d difference then i give a fuk
- Nick Tagataka
- Xpf
Firewarrior96, 20 Dec 2020lol it's been years since Raw+Jpeg shooting do exist on LG phones but no cares about it .... moreBecause what Apple does here is NOT the same as what LG has been doing? You might want to dive deeper into the article before complaining.
- Nick Tagataka
- Xpf
I really hope, for "unedited" DNG samples on this article, you guys used the desktop/mobile Lightroom app to convert the raw file into JPEG instead of the default Photos app on iOS. As far as I know the latter cooks the ProRAW image pretty badly and apply a lot of saturation, sharpening and noise reduction by default which would alter the results dramatically.
Anyway, those samples.. don't really look that good, honestly. Apple seems to be applying a lot of luminance & chroma noise reduction as well as sharpening to those 12-bit DNG files (I also confirmed this in my own testing), which is definitely NOT what I would like to see on RAW. Heck, I wouldn't even call them RAW because it comes demosaicked and post-processed by default. Even though HDR+ RAW on GCam is also something that is classified as "Computational RAW" just like ProRAW, the difference between those two is literally night and day, and of course I prefer the GCam output any day of my life.
My guess is Apple wanted to make RAW editing more average-consumer friendly, which is indicated by the fact that they didn't include a manual mode in the camera app as well as ProRAW files are pre-edited and pretty much ready for export from the get go in the stock gallery app. I get that Apple's philosophy is to design hardware and software features in a way that even people with no technical knowledge will be able to use them extensively, but I really don't see what's actually so "Pro" about this newly added feature. If anything, any Android phone with a sub-1 inch sensor and GCam installed will be more suitable for casual photographers than iPhone 12 Pro series is, at least from pure image quality standpoint.
- Firewarrior96
- fur
lol it's been years since Raw+Jpeg shooting do exist on LG phones but no cares about it .
Apple put the same thing and called it "ProRaw" whole bunch of websites write articles about it.
seriously it isn't apple solely that influence consumers into this , it is you the reporters that mislead readers and people's purchases decisions
- Anonymous
- p37
Just get a real camera for that purpose instead ....
- Anonymous
- JT5
Anonymous, 20 Dec 2020"That's not what I do - I use my phone to capture the world as I see it, with a touc... moreApple and Samsung have worst WB among all phone.
Weirdly both are still praised by media.
I think it is fear of losing readers and viewers.
- Anonymous
- JT5
Anonymous, 20 Dec 2020I see that Apple's dng files still suffer from watercolor noise reduction. That's a ... moreRAW on iphone is not real RAW, still overprocessed.
Reason it is poor compared to RAW of other phones.
- Anonymous
- pQr
"That's not what I do - I use my phone to capture the world as I see it, with a touch of enhancement."
Phones often do not capture the world realistically. That's why it is often necessary to adjust the white balance and edit the raw file for the most accurate results. iPhones often also make grey colors look like beige.
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