How to Shoot and Edit Apple ProRAW Photos for iPhone

Everything You Need to Know to Shoot, Edit, and Process ProRaw Photos from Apple's Latest iPhone Devices

You may not know, but your iPhone can shoot raw images like a traditional DSLR camera. First introduced with the iPhone 6S in 2015, capturing RAW photos allows you to edit your images in post-production further, considerably increasing the potential of your iPhone photographs!

What is RAW? First, RAW isn't a file system but a way to describe the untouched information captured by a camera sensor. When you press the shutter button on the default camera app, a powerful engine transforms raw pixels into a picture format (JPEG or HEIC.) This is what you see in your camera roll. The iPhone determined the best exposure, colors, and more. The default auto camera app is the most convenient and fast way to capture fleeting moments and everyday life, from your kid's first steps to the restaurant receipt. All you have to do is point and shoot.

However, sometimes, you may want to edit some images further. Maybe you wish to adjust the white balance or retain highlight details in that fantastic sunset photo. And while you can edit JPEG or HEIC images, you may have noticed that you can only push those sliders narrowly before ruining your image.

This is because all the raw information from the sensor has already been interpreted (edited) and baked inside the image by the iPhone. So, you are applying more edits to a finished image.

But what if you could fully control how the final image will look by bypassing the iPhone processing engine? That's where RAW enters the game. By editing a RAW image directly, you can edit it however you like. From the temperature, brightness, and even selective colors in your photo (for example, changing the color of a sweater in your portrait.)

That is one of the many reasons why most photographers capture in RAW. Camera manufacturers such as Canon, Nikon, and Sony all have proprietary RAW file formats (CR2, CR3, NEF, etc.)

Apple chose the highly compatible Adobe DNG (Digital Negative Image) to process RAW images on their iPhone, which allows most photo editors to process iPhone RAW DNG.

What Is ProRaw?

Now that we know what RAW is let's turn our attention to Apple ProRAW. First of all, ProRAW is for photos, not videos. ProRaw is often misunderstood for ProRes or ProRes RAW, which are video codecs.

Regarding image editing, RAW images are great for unleashing your creativity. However, despite the ability to capture raw, there are still some limitations with iPhone (and smartphones in general).

For example, less light is hitting the sensor since the sensor is much smaller than a typical mirrorless sensor. Less light means less dynamic range and more noise. Smartphone manufacturers implemented powerful algorithms to counter these hardware limitations that enhance what a smartphone sensor can capture. For example, whenever you take a standard photo with your iPhone, the iPhone merges several images for higher dynamic range and color renditions. Apple calls it Smart HDR and Deep Fusion. But again, this means that the iPhone is already applying edits to the image; hence, it isn't raw anymore.

With ProRAW, Apple hopes to deliver the best of both RAW images and computational photography in a "smart" raw.

When you shoot ProRAW images, the iPhone can take advantage of features such as Smart HDR, Deep Fusion, and even Night mode while retaining the advantage of a RAW image, letting users change white balance, exposure, and colors in post-production.

"Apple ProRAW combines the information of a standard RAW format along with iPhone image processing, giving more flexibility when editing the exposure, color, and white balance in your photo." - Apple

How To Shoot ProRaw

Apple ProRAW is only available on Pro iPhone. From the iPhone 12 Pro to the iPhone 15 Pro. One of the advantages of ProRaw is that unlike standard RAW - which requires a third-party app - you can shoot ProRAW directly in the stock camera app.

ProRaw is also available in third-party apps such as the Pro Camera by Moment or Halide.

1. With the Standard Camera App

To turn on ProRaw, navigate to your iPhone settings, then the camera, and turn on Apple ProRAW under formats.

If you own an iPhone 14 Pro or 15 Pro, you will have an additional setting to choose the resolution of your ProRaw images: 12 or 48 megapixels. Note: Only the primary camera (The Wide Lens) can shoot 48 megapixels RAW. When using the Ultra-Wide or telephoto lenses, these will be 12 megapixels.

ProRAW images are much larger than the standard HEIC images and will fill your iPhone memory (or iCloud) much faster!

2. With the Pro Camera by Moment

Navigate to the app settings, and under "photo settings," make sure ProRaw Format is turned on.

You have two options: ProRAW and ProRAW+JPG. Choose ProRaw Only.

In the app viewfinder, you should see ProRAW on the top banner. You can click on it and change the format at any moment.

The advantage of using a third-party app is the ability to manually control your exposure settings, such as iso, shutter speed, and white balance. However, when shooting ProRAW, it's often better to let the iPhone decide the optimum exposure. More on this later.

How To Edit ProRaw

Since ProRAW images use Adobe DNG file format, ProRaw photos can be edited in almost any editing app and software compatible with Adobe DNG (most are.)

The standard Photos app can edit ProRAW format. However, it only provides a partial extent of a dedicated app such as Lightroom Mobile and Capture One.

If your preferred editing app (such as VSCO or Darkroom) doesn't support ProRAW, you can still edit your image, but the software won't utilize the benefits of ProRaw and instead lets you edit the standard RAW DNG.

I use the combo Lightroom and Lightroom Classic to edit all my images. While it's a paid app, it's the best way to get the most out of your ProRaw images because of Lightroom's ability to control the tone mapping of a ProRaw image through a simple slider.

Lightroom mobile is free to download but requires a subscription to edit raw photos.

Note: If you already have an Adobe subscription, you should have access to the premium features within Lightroom Mobile.

Editing ProRAW images inside Lightroom is similar to editing standard raw pictures taken from a mirrorless camera. The one thing that will differ is the tone mapping slider. Lightroom utilizes its power camera profile engine to control the features of a ProRAW image.

Upon opening a ProRAW image in Lightroom or Lightroom Classic, you will find "ProRAW" under the camera profile. If you wish to edit the image in black and white, you can see a ProRaw Monochrome profile.

To keep things simple, the slider below the camera profile controls how much processing is applied to your image (this includes Smart HDR and Deep Fusion.) By default, it is set to 100%. But it can sometimes create unnatural results. Try adjusting the slider to balance between your shadows and highlights. At 0%, the image might appear very dark and underexposed.

From there, you can adjust your standard settings such as white balance, exposure, contrast, and HSL (Hue/Saturation/Luminosity).

ProRaw images already contain denoising, sharpening and lens distortion correction, so turn those off in Lightroom.

When Not To Use ProRaw

In the paper, Apple's solution to merge the qualities of both RAW and computational photography is terrific. Nonetheless, it's not perfect, and in some situations, you might be better off sticking to either standard RAW DNG or fully embracing standard capture in HEIC/JPG.

One of the main selling points of ProRAW is that it automatically merges several exposures into one image. This method is called HDR, which isn't new to the iPhone. But this type of HDR supposedly gives you comparable results to a standard bracketing sequence shot with your mirrorless cameras and merged into Lightroom Classic, retaining all the information with the RAW files.

When working with ProRAW in Lightroom and Lightroom Classic, the slider we mentioned earlier allows you to decide the intensity of the combined exposures. But sometimes, even after adjusting the tone mapping, the image looks closer to an oil painting than a photograph.

Moreover, the denoising and sharpening can quickly go over and beyond, which isn't always good.

I decided to show this by shooting photos in tricky lighting conditions. It was the end of the day, with lots of fog and limited natural light. I shot both images in ProRAW and standard RAW DNG.

As you can see, the denoising can render shadows mushy with a complete loss of details. And with ProRAW files in Lightroom Classic, you cannot control the amount of denoising and sharpening individually from the Smart HDR and Deep Fusion since all the features of ProRAW are loaded inside the tone mapping. So, when adjusting the camera profile slider, you impact all the settings simultaneously.

Do you still wish your iPhone photos had a softer texture closer to film? Try shooting it with a mist filter such as the Moment CineBloom Filter!

If we look at the standard RAW DNG image, there is more grain, but you still have details in the shadows. After manually applying some denoising and sharpening in Lightroom, you can get more natural results than in the ProRAW file.

It will be even more noticeable when using the ultra-wide and telephoto lenses on your iPhone since they have a smaller aperture, resulting in more aggressive denoising from the neural engine. Keep in mind that we are pixel-peeping here.

If you enjoy shooting extreme focal lengths such as ultra wide or telephoto, you can try a Moment lens such as the 18mm T-Series or 58mm T-Series. Mounting those lenses on the primary iPhone camera will produce sharper details since the main lens has a larger aperture. Moment lenses are fully compatible with ProRAW and RAW DNG within the Moment Pro Camera App.

The following images were shot by my brother in France with his iPhone 15 Pro. I wanted to see if the newest models had some improvement with ProRAW, especially with the 48- megapixel sensor! Images were downscaled from 48-megapixels to 12-megapixels.

On a sunny day, the ProRAW image did great, retaining all the details in the sky without looking overprocessed.

Conversely, the standard RAW DNG has more grain, and the sky is slightly overexposed. Both images retain excellent details throughout the photos, even in the shadows.

I suggest avoiding ProRAW under challenging situations such as low light, especially if you want to retain details in the shadows. You could always expose for the shadow region and lock the exposure, but then you might have odd artifacts in the sky since ProRAW will try to retain details in the highlights.

Tip: To lock the exposure on a specific subject, long press until you see a small yellow square with AE/AF Lock displayed.

Conclusion

You should now have a much better understanding of ProRAW photos and how to shoot and edit them. So grab your iPhone, maybe a couple of Moment lenses and filters, and shoot away.

💌 There's More!

Enjoyed this read? Subscribe now and receive all the latest and greatest articles straight to your inbox. All original. Community first. 100% ad-free.

SUBSCRIBE NOW