Apple ProRAW feature on iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max running iOS 14.3 or later allows users to take photos in .DNG format and get greater control over editing their photos. This a great feature that makes iPhone an even better tool for professional photographers and those who take photography on iPhone more seriously.
Users need to enable Apple ProRAW feature first before they can start using it. Once the feature has been enabled from Settings, they can toggle it on and off right from the Camera app.
If you are an iPhone 12 Pro user and are confused whether you should use the Apple ProRAW feature or should not use it, then read on.
Here’s why you should use Apple ProRAW on iPhone
Here are some of the major reasons why you should use Apple ProRAW feature on iPhone.
By using Apple ProRAW feature on your iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max, the only two devices this feature is available on right now you can take more control the editing process of the photos taken with the iPhone.
After saving RAW versions of your photos to the device you can more accurately edit photos in post production using apps like Lightroom or even the built-in Photos app. Compared to normal JPEG images users have more freedom to edit photos in post production and can make greater changes to the image’s exposure, color and white balance.
iPhone 12 Pro is able to take ProRAW format photos from all four of its cameras, which means you can take ProRAW photos from wide, ultra-wide, telephoto and front cameras. ProRAW photos can also be taken in Smart HDR, Deep Fusion and Night mode. Having the ability to take Night mode photos in ProRAW can help you making greater post production changes to the images and gain more control over how the images look.
Since ProRAW uses industry standard DNG file format, you can use any app that support this file format to edit ProRAW images. You can export the .DNG ProRAW photos to your computer and use professional photo editing tools on your Mac or PC to edit these images, and achieve amazing results.
Here’s why you should not use Apple ProRAW on iPhone
Here’s why you should avoid using Apple ProRAW feature on your iPhone.
While there are many benefits for using the Apple ProRAW feature, there are some reasons why you should not use ProRAW. ProRAW feature on the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max is designed to let professional photographers and photography enthusiasts to take more control over their photos and give them more space when editing images.
However if you are someone who does not edit photos before sharing them with others or your edits are limited to changing the brightness and contrast of the image and applying Instagram filters to the images, then using ProRAW isn’t a great idea.
ProRAW images take up significantly larger space on your device and sharing them can also consume more bandwidth than normal images. Apple says ProRAW files can be 10 to 12 times larger than HEIF or JPEG images you take with your iPhone.
So while a normal photo may have a size of 3-4 MB, photo taken with ProRAW feature turned on might end up with a file size of 25 MB. When you add this size difference up for hundreds of images that a typical user takes you can end up filling your iPhone’s storage as well as iCloud storage pretty quickly.
Good thing is while you can turn off ProRAW feature completely, you can also toggle it on and off directly from the Camera app. You can tap on the RAW button located on top right corner of the screen to disable RAW. When the mode is off you will see a line across the RAW button indicating the feature is currently inactive.
To summarize
Use ProRAW if you need more control over post production editing and you need more flexibility when editing exposure, color and white balance.
Do not use ProRAW if you don’t edit your photos before posting them online and you don’t want images to fill up your iPhone storage and iCloud storage more quickly.
What do you think about Apple’r new ProRAW feature and do you use it on your iPhone 12 Pro or iPhone 12 Pro Max? Let us know in the comments below.
