With the flexibility of Apple’s ProRaw photo format, I can show the shadow details in this taillight cactus without blowing out the colors of the bright dawn sky.
Stephen Shankland / CNET
ProRaw, the new photo format that Apple introduced on its iPhone 12 Pro Max, is the most important thing that pulls me away from my Pixel phone. I still like my Google Pixel. But more and more, I grab my iPhone 12 Pro Max when you take a shot. Its telephoto camera, which sits next to wide-angle and ultra-wide cameras, is a big draw. However, the control that the ProRaw format gives me when I edit my photos is the key to my changing photography habits.
With the new ProRaw technology, I can achieve a more pleasing and natural look than I can get with the standard JPEG or HEIC photos that most camera phones provide. This is important for my nature and family photos.
Read: CNET’s in-depth review of Apple ProRaw
The new format gives Apple a head start after a decade in which its once superior iPhone cameras lost ground from Google, whose image processing software has dramatically improved smartphone photography. Apple’s investment in photography should help keep iPhone customers loyal – especially the creative ones Apple likes to display in its ads – even if companies like Samsung try to win us over with features like large – zoom telephones.
Google took the lead, but lost the lead
Google deserves credit for groundbreaking computer photography techniques that compensate for the shortcomings of smartphone cameras. This has made smartphones a better option for photography enthusiasts, like me, who are used to a DSLR.
One of my favorite Google technologies is called computational raw, a direct competitor of ProRaw that hit Apple with the Pixel 3 version in two years. This is the key to wringing more image quality out of small phone sensors than I ever thought it would be.
The ProRaw image on the left offers a natural view of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains at sunset. At the corresponding JPEG, the mountains seem to be processed and unrealistic.
Stephen Shankland / CNET
Apple started offering ProRaw with the iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max in 2020. It was then that Google scaled down its photography ambitions and bet that people would prefer a good value over an expensive flagship phone during the coronavirus pandemic. Google’s Pixel 5 has only wide and ultrawide cameras; the iPhone 12 Pro models have wide, ultra-wide and telephoto cameras.
The iPhone 12 Pro models start at $ 999 compared to the more modest $ 699 price of the Pixel 5. The Pixel 5 is a good choice for many people. I happen to be someone who needs a telephoto camera, especially the 2.5X zoom in the iPhone 12 Pro Max, the price of which starts at $ 1,099.
Apple’s ProRaw works just fine with its 2.5X optical zoom. In contrast, Google’s calculations suffer from a lower resolution when used with the Pixel’s Super-Res Zoom magnification. I’m interested in the 3X and 10X zoom cameras on Samsung’s new Galaxy S21 Ultra, but Samsung does not allow the ability to capture raw images from those cameras.
Why ProRaw is Good
The biggest advantage of ProRaw is that it offers photographers more flexibility than they are used to with SLR cameras and mirrorless cameras from Sony, Nikon and Canon. To create a compact JPEG or HEIC, a camera throws out image information it does not think you need. Shooting raw likes more of the original data. Apple, like Google, packages the raw data using Adobe’s flexible DNG (Digital Negative) image format.
I started shooting raw with my DSLR years ago to get better control over exposure and color. I was looking for the ability to refine shadow detail, brighten highlights and correct color castings to my liking rather than guessing my camera.
Apple’s ProRaw, like Google’s calculations, gives me the freedom, but with smartphone photography. Ordinary raw photos from a smartphone are limited by the data captured in a single image. However, ProRaw marries multiple frames in a single recording with Apple’s Smart HDR to offer a wider range of bright to shadow and more tonal detail than a JPEG or HEIC. (The technical term for this is dynamic range.) And it applies to Apple’s Deep Fusion technology, a pixel-by-pixel analysis of each recording to reduce noise while preserving texture and color. ProRaw offers me the flexibility to preserve more of the brilliant sky and deep shadows of sunset scenes.
The second advantage is the color flexibility. Cameras struggle to judge how best to compensate for nuances such as the deep blue of shadow scenes or the hot oranges of sunrise and sunset. ProRaw preserves more color information so I can warm up the colors of someone’s shadowy face so it does not look like hypothermia has set in.
For this photo of a cholla cactus, I prefer the ProRaw version, bottom left, above the JPEG above. Pushing the white balance in the direction of yellow and blue shows more how much color information the ProRaw shots have at the bottom for flexibility for editing.
Stephen Shankland / CNET
Another big advantage of ProRaw involves the grinding algorithms that all cameras use to brighten the edges and make the eyes sparkle. I find that Apple’s grinding often goes too far and turns busy scenes like a jumble of branches into a turbulent mess. If I edit a ProRaw image, I can turn it off.
For much more details, check out my colleague Andrew Hoyle’s deeper look how ProRaw can improve your phone photography.
My ProRaw flu
I do not care that Apple hides the ProRaw mode before activating it specifically. Most people do not have as much time or need to be deceived with photos like me and other raw photo fans. I’m also glad that with another preference you can set your iPhone to stay in ProRaw mode once you’ve turned it on. (By default, the phone switches to JPEG shortly after you finish taking ProRaw photos.)
What I do not like is looking at myself in my sunscreen in bright sunlight to check the icon indicating whether ProRaw has been activated. A few times I eliminated it with my thumb and missed shots that should have been ProRaw.
I prefer Apple, just like Google, to take both a computational photo and a JPEG of each recording. Apple has opted for what it considers a simpler or interface, but I prefer the flexibility.
In this recording of the Rio Grande, Apple’s ProRaw format, on the left, captured depth that I found on the right of the JPEG. I was also able to reproduce the warmer sunset colors lost in the JPEG when the iPhone processing tried to give me a blue sky.
Stephen Shankland / CNET
One reason I sometimes reach for my Pixel 5 is that the camera starts almost immediately with a double tap on the on / off button, a process that can start when the phone is still in my pocket. The iPhone requires a long press on the camera icon of the lock screen, which is slower.
Still, the flexibility of ProRaw combined with the range of the iPhone 12 Pro’s three cameras is why it’s almost always the first phone I grab when it’s time to photograph a nature scene, my kids, or other subjects. It’s amazing that smartphones are constantly landing on the grass, once held exclusively by higher cameras.
If you are satisfied with JPEG and HEIC shots directly from the regular camera of the phone, I will not think of you any less. You can get great photos regularly without ProRaw. But if you want more of your photos, ProRaw delivers the goods.
The relatively broad dynamic range of Apple’s ProRaw format reveals my shadowy details in this challenging shot looking at the sun. Left is the unedited shot.
Stephen Shankland / CNET