ProRaw Photos Of iPhone 12 Pro: Everything You Need To Know

Brace yourselves, photo nerds! iOS 14.3 developer beta gives us an idea of how it works.

The only way the Pro Max and iPhone 12 Pro is different from 12 Mini and iPhone 12 is Apple’s raw and new photo format. It is known as ProRaw and includes a raw picture file with its computationally smart photos. The launch of the iOS 14.3 developer’s beta brings along ProRes pictures and provides more clarity on its working.

Specialty Of ProRaw

Presently, a clicked picture is saved as a JPEG or raw file which you have no options to change. In the JPEG file, the exposure, color balance, noise reduction, and other features are decided by your iPhone.

Whereas in the raw file, you can change and customize a picture in a way you like to. The sensors of the camera on phones are tiny as compared to the DSLR camera which gives a small range for dynamics and increases image noise. However, JPEGs fix these issues with Smart HDR, Night Mode, and Deep Fusion in iPhone.

Raw photos will be clicked via third-party apps like VSCO or Halide. This indicates that a photo can be clicked as JPEG with the iOS camera or as a raw file with the third-party apps.

The inclusion of ProRaw in iPhone 12 Pro changes stuff. It is not available on default. You have to activate it by going to Settings, then camera, and then formats. There under the Photo Capture feature, turn on the toggle to activate Apple ProRaw.There is also a Raw button in the camera app for switching between JPEG and ProRaw photos.

ProRaw is present in all of the 4 iPhone 12 Pro cameras and Night Mode. It supports 14 stops for dynamic range,12-bit color, file format, and Adobe DNG. The files are bulky, about 25 MBs.

Picture Analysis and Editing

Apple took a similar approach with ProRaw in iPhone 12 Pro as Google did with HDR Plus in Pixel phones.ProRaw files contain multiple frames of image and store data from beautiful parts of these pictures. Analysis of images in terms of the pixel is done by Deep Fusion to make a deep picture file. The analysis is done in no time without shutter lag by A14 Bionic.

iOS and macOS both convert and support ProRaw files and apps like Pixelmator and Dark Room.ProRaw images can be edited in the app for Photos. The iPhone 12 Pro pictures will contain a raw tag like videos of quality HDR. The file being DNG, Adobe Lightroom app will have a better function if they support Apple’s ProRaw. 

An Adobe representative talked about being excited about partnering with Apple along with the benefits that their mutual customers will get. But there were no specifics to share.

The support will be provided by the third parties for raw photos on iPhone 12 Pro. Both ProRaw and Raw photos will get support from developers.

Presently, there is no official time announced regarding ProRaw being included in 14.3 and its availability on iPhone 12 Max Pro and iPhone 12 Pro.