Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Why Shoot Raw Photos?


Apple’s built-in Camera app has no option for shooting in raw files and saving them to an open-source format like DNG files.  But iOS 10 makes it possible for third-party camera apps to to save Raw file. And it's possible to convert raw to the open source format or JPEG.

But why would you want to shoot raw photos? These photos have not been automatically improved by IOS. So you would not want to shoot RAW unless you have a photo editor in your camera app for improving the files. Here's a list of advantages in shooting RAW photos.

1. Higher quality. Afterlens computer editing is better for processing and converting photos than the camera is.

2. It is easier to correct over exposed or even under exposed photos if they are raw. 

3. JPEG, the native camera file format, only records 256 levels of brightness. But raw photos have up to 16,384 levels. This can make a big difference with afterlens editing of exposure, blacks, fills,  contrast, and brightness.


4. You have access to more details.


5. It is easier to adjust white balance because it's not lost in the JPEG conversion by the camera. 


6. If your App does any printing such as posters, wall plaques, photo books or greeting cards, then you will get better print results from originally raw photos. You get less banding which is bad for printing. And you have finer colors. 


Again, the downside is that your Camera App needs afterlens photo editing. Here's an example of raw on the left and pre-processed on the right. The Raw file is ready for better afterlens processing.