Apple ProRAW

Hi Lucas,
I totally agree. This could be a very specific market, even, only a macOS PL niche depending on the technology at disposal (I mean here if it needs special API from Apple that are not available on Windows).

This post is to draw attention on this specific new RAW format.
If it makes sense and if there are millions of iPhone and potential customers for this format, how many will want to use PL for their edits ?
Check, wait and see…

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Exactly, but we’re talking of “ProRAW” format here :slight_smile:
And I’ve not seen much documentation about it yet.

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ProRAW is a still image format coming in the future: link. It was announced during the recent iPhone 12 product introduction. Information is very thin at present. It’s not a raw format in the sense of capturing raw data off the sensor—some processing is being applies. But this makes sense in that much of the power in iPhone photography comes from fusing multiple images with different exposures.

ProRes is a lossy but high resolution video format used extensively in video production.

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Thanks for the link Andreas, it’s a good one. The conversation in the comments about the merit of Apple’s existing RAW format is an interesting one.

So we are castigating DxO for not supporting a RAW format which Apple has not even released yet? Given the pace of support for new cameras and formats, it’s good to start early I suppose.

Very nice of Apple to restrict software only features to the latest hardware (hinted in the article: perhaps Apple will have the good sense to include ProRAW in an OS update for all iPhone X and higher phones which include those HDR features). If this is not rolled out to at least the iPhone 11 Pro, I’m about done with Apple’s corporate greed and the MBA types running the company thinking always about next quarter. No long term vision here, as always characterised Apple under (RIP) Steve.

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A few news…

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I have iOS 14.3 Beta running and the ProRaw results I am getting are impressive. Also, I can already edit the DNG files directly on my iPad using Adobe Lightroom - and I’m amazed at what I can do with mixed light and low light photos, taken hand-held. The results I am getting out of my iPhone 12 Pro Max sensors are nothing short of astonishing.
Here’s an example taken with iPhone 12 Pro Max ProRaw DNG:

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I was quite disappointed to see that DxO had stopped supporting iphone’s DNG files.
I hope Apple ProRAW will be the opportunity for DxO to get back on this… as probably a lot more people will use it as it is available directly on apple camera app.
Lightroom already supports it… I hope dxo will do the same.

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Example shadow recovery with ProRAW: link.

They’re promising a deep-dive into ProRAW tomorrow.

Interesting read: Understanding ProRAW

“This may be surprising to some: ProRAW is not a proprietary or closed format. Credit where it is due: Apple deserves kudos for bringing their improvements to the DNG standard. When you shoot with ProRAW, there’s absolutely nothing locking your photos into the Apple ecosystem.”

There used to be some support for my iPhone SE (original) RAWs taken with halide within DxO Photolab. Now that I have upgraded to iOS 14.3, this support is gone because Apple presumably has changed something into the iphone raw format. Given that I have an oldish iphone now I presume that compatibility of Dxo photolab with any iphone upgraded to 14.3 is gone. This should give incentive to DxO for looking a bit more into the problem and restoring iphone compatibility all along the way.

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A followup to my previous message - the Halide+ios14 problem with Photolab is not due to the iso update, but entirely Halide’s. I can still read iPhone raws produced by Lightroom mobile in Photolab.

This incidentally highlights a problematic aspect of hectic mobile software updates - The software gets very easily broken, and very easily no longer supported. You sometimes pay for something you’re not even sure to keep for a full year.

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From what I’ve heard, Apple’s ProRAW is based on their work with Adobe to upgrade the DNG specification to version 1.6, so that is what would be ideal for PhotoLab to support.

If an Optics Module could also be provided for the iPhone 12 Pro/Pro Max that would be the icing on the cake. I personally have no interest in this, but I am constantly promoting PhotoLab to anyone who will listen and the two things that repeatedly come up are current iPhone support and Fuji X-Trans support. At least in the circles I operate, those are the two big-ticket improvements to many more customers.

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Some mobile RAW support (Android included) is welcome. But I figure that this is a difficult topic to implement.

I’ve now received my iphone 12 pro.

Apple ProRaw is a linear dng, like the ones you can export from dxo to be used in lightroom.
So, there’s no noise correction to be applied, for instance, as apple has already applied its correction (a little too much to my taste, but quite impressive).

There won’t be any interest on applying deepprime on a proraw, however the files have a very high dynamic range so it will be interesting to be able to process the files through dxo.

I want my raw software to handle all my photo files, to get a consistent processing.
And now, smartphone photography is real photography. You can do a lot with an iphone and proraw (and same with android phones and dng).

I think dxo should really support these files, even if it’s not getting the best optical corrections and so on…
Just the standard processing capability would be good enough.

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Even though I have no personal interest, I find it hard to disagree.

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any news ?

Any news? Really love PL but have to use LightRoom only for ProRaw editing… what kinda sucks …

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I’m not sure if this trick would work with ProRAW but with normal iPhone DNG’s it’s possible to use MetaImage to edit iPhone 11 Pro Max DNG files as iPhone X files. There’s quite a bit of information in the RAW files.

MetaImage is currently on sale at BundleHunt for $3 (normal price is $19).

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I did manage to find some iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 RAW files and test them. Results here.

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Almost end of 2023. Still waiting for this.

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