Some may scoff at the fact that I do (try) to edit iPhone images with DxO Elite.
That’s because it is not practical for me to carry my 6Dii + Lenses + 600D or M200 + Lenses around with me all day in a school environment, especially when I teach in between shoots (or visa-versa). Nor do I like taking the 6Dii on a whole week camp with the student (the phone is much cheaper to fix/replace if damaged).
Therefore, I try to use the same software for the one shoot which always consists of multiple cameras, for simplicity and consistency in processing. Which mean if I have iPhone 13 Pro images in the shoot. I am better off processing everything in Lightroom (not my first choice).
So the latest iPhone DxO module is the iPhone X. That phone was produced in 2017, 6ish years ago.
Adobe Raw (Lightroom/Photoshop) already has Phone/Lens profiles for the latest models! And the including support the new Apple ProRAW formats.
It is frustrating that the best photo processing software doesn’t support the best phone cameras. I’ve been waiting several years for the latest iPhones to be supported and am still waiting…
I’m not sure why it takes so long, but my guess is that DXO(a small company) only has so many engineers to do many tasks and mobile phones are not high on the priority list.
There is a workaround. You can use an EXIF editor or HEX editor to change the “13” to “X” and PL will accept the file and allow editing(including Deep Prime NR). I’ve tried this with my iPhone 12 Pro Max and it works very well.
OK. I’m going to be controversial and question whether a phone was ever intended to be a camera as well Look at the numbers… a focal length of a couple of millimetres and an aperture of around f/2, neither of which can be controlled. The only thing I have found them useful for is large DoF macro style shots and photos taken in the dead of night.
Hello,
That may all be true, but I have never understood why DXO does not simply support DNG files from smartphones, etc., and when opening them it points out that only basic functions are stored for this file, but I can then work with all files in DXO.
I now open almost all of these files in Affinity Photo. Since these files are also supported in many other tools, it can’t be that difficult.
Was a camera ever supposed to have a computer in it? Seriously. Joanna it’s kind of a ridiculous comment.
There are way more images captured with cell phones than standalone cameras these days. And in the right hands, good cell phones produce amazing images.
Possibly, but since I also do LF photography on a wooden camera with bellows and no electronics in sight, I would certainly question the wisdom of putting something so bug-prone as a computer in a camera
I teach at our local club photo and can assure you, I have more trouble teaching people with “low-cost” DSLRs, with so many menus it seems impossible to find what you want to do, that I ever do with someone using something like a D850, which has one wheel for shutter speed, a second for aperture, press a button marked ISO to change that and easy to turn off auto-focus.
All nice and manual and under the user’s control rather than at the whim of some demented programmer who thinks he knows how to make a computer take pictures, and who is determined to not let them switch to manual anything.
Can I refine that to “there are way more snapshots and selfies captured with cell phones than standalone cameras” - the majority of which barely qualify as real images. Most people seem to use their phone cameras simply to capture memories and post on social media.
From the earlier moments of a camera obscura (= “dark chamber”), in which a draftsperson was sitting in a chamber on a desk and drawed the lines of the projected objects with pencil or red chalk on paper to a smartphone camera is a long way to walk. And from riding a horse to flying to Mars as well.
In all inventions is a purpose and sometimes new purposes add from time to time. So, insisting a purpose of a camera can’t be to be part of a cellphone is a bit like purpose of a car can’t be to light up a cigarette or carry a navigation system. At least, there are paper maps. And matches…
On the other side I think DxO PL was not invented to please few phone users in need for a RAW converter, as the most are using a bunch of filter apps.
Joanna, I’m going to have to agree with @MikeR on this one…Why not?
There are times when it is inconvenient to carry a “proper” camera and a variety of lenses around with me. I always have my phone. While focal length and aperture are unchangeable, the iPhone 12 Pro Max has three cameras, each with a different focal length. Kind of like having three primes, normal, slightly wide and portrait length. This is not ideal but is better than no photos at all.
When I’m in these situations and use my phone for my photos, I would like to use the full strength of Photolab to make them look their best. Why not?
I disagree with the following…
“On the other side I think DxO PL was not invented to please few phone users in need for a RAW converter, as the most are using a bunch of filter apps.”
I use PL for my “proper” cameras but I also use an iPhone and when I do, I would like to use PL to process the images.
and sometimes we are on a walk, haven’t the camera with us, but smartphone is always in bag.
So for example my wife took these two pictures with her P30pro, by visiting the small Sigwardskirche in Idensen. Being at home we’ve send the photos to the Pastor and he used the clock for his calendar of 2022.
But for the DNG I have to start with another program.
not a bi problem but unnecessary
Your statement is true. But I think if you exclude all the cell phone snapshots and selfies, there are still likely way more “good photographs” taken with cell phones than “good photographs” taken with ILC’s.
Let’s not forget that for PL, being able to decode the raw/dng image is only the start - there is also all the optical testing they do for the lens corrections and sensor characteristics, even when the raw contains the manufacturer’s correction data (which is what Adobe often uses, I believe). Just editing the EXIF data to make it work by pretending the image is from a supported camera ignores the differences between camera bodies, and lenses too if they are fixed. It all takes time, and the queue is long!
My emphasis. DxO doesn’t just “add decoding” for camera models. They do controlled laboratory testing to address the specific properties of the sensor and lenses. That’s why so many of us think it is the best. So it’s not simple to add a new camera. I have a recollection that it’s not so simple to determine from the EXIF data which lens has even been used in some models.
Next… while @Joanna may be saying things a little controversially, I think she’s on the right track. I have no data but I question how big a market DxO would be addressing, particularly given the speed at which phones are released. Apple only release one model (as far as the camera is concerned) per year but Samsung release them at a ridiculous rate, and then there are the other manufacturers. That is a not inconsequential number of laboratory sessions. And for what?
We may read that there are millions of phones out there, but how many of those users are going to:
a) purchase a separate app (data says almost no Android users),
b) use that app to shoot RAW images, and
c) take those images off the phone for processing on a laptop/desktop computer?
I’d say a) is a pretty small number, and b) and c) get successively smaller. By addressing DSLR/mirrorless, DxO are targeting people who (mostly) have already made a declaration that they are intending to take the photos off the phone onto a personal computer. They’re also addressing a large body of cameras that can shoot RAW from the moment you turn them on, rather than relying on the user to remember to do things the right way. (I’m an iPhone user, but I guess Android users can set a different default camera app.)
I don’t know how far Adobe go, but my impression is they simply deal with:
The file format, and
distortion
Maybe there’s more to their approach, but I doubt they run a suite of laboratory tests.
So, it’s not a simple process and probably has a low payoff.
Hi Zkarj,
yes if you want to develop with the complete toolset of DXO, but that’s not my intention. I only want to have the possibility to work within a project without changing the tool.
But it’s ok…I’ve found again a workaround around DXO
enjoy the week…we at least will have sun the whole week
That is actually a feature request I think makes some sense. While it may not be practical to do the whole laboratory test, there is certainly value in letting users work with the standard tools, without the “secret sauce” of DxO. On Apple platforms it would be easy as Apple ships macOS with extensive RAW conversion capabilities built in, whereafter it would be just like working with a TIFF.
Yes and maybe for Windows it’s an idea to implement the Lenshub project by Github or whatever is needed to support DNG in a simple manner
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Stenis
(Sten-Åke Sändh (Sony, Win 11, PL 6, CO 16, PM Plus 6, XnView))
18
Sure, we are lot of users waiting for camera profiles for new unsupported system cameras but the main purpose with Photolab is to use it as a RAW-converter. That said most telephones doesn’t even generate RAW. I would very much like DXO focus on the system camera profiles we still are waiting for.
1 Like
Stenis
(Sten-Åke Sändh (Sony, Win 11, PL 6, CO 16, PM Plus 6, XnView))
19
@zkarj
There is always a possibility for DXO to open a “common”, “normal” or “generic” flat sort of importprofile without camerabias but that hasn’t happened yet.
It is from what I can see a possibility to select a completely different profile already in PL 5 than the one your files are opened with or just don’t and start from scratch without any profile support from PL at all.
It can be the choise of your own as ling as you “get in”.
What is a camera profile doing? It just gives you a better starting point what I can see but it has nothing to do about the final results really. You can reach your images full potential with or without them really. That’s why there should be a generic starting point for the ones preferring that to getting locked out completely with files not yet supported.
This is the converter industry’s biggest common problem. A couple of days a friend of mine had the same problem with his old version of Lightroom not supporting Sony A7r4. The easiest way is to start to use Sonys Imaging Edge that is free and works for all Sony cameras from day one. So now he has starting to look at that package as a free alternative instead. So there is a price for all converter companies to pay if they can’t keep up with the market pace or if their customers refuse to upgrade only to get support for their cameras.
Look at the numbers… a focal length of a couple of millimetres and an aperture of around f/2, neither of which can be controlled. The only thing I have found them useful for is large DoF macro style shots and photos taken in the dead of night.
