Yes, even tho i am now happy with my 16 PM results, i think 14 pro series still unmatched with proraw samples.
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iPhone 16 Pro Max Issues with ProRAW 48 and stock camera app
- Thread starter jajo.j
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Apple has slowly given us control over every aspect of the image, in one way or another, except noise reduction. I’m hopeful noise reduction will be next.
Granted they haven’t made it as easy as it should be (e.g. to reduce sharpening or eliminate HDR tone mapping you have to shoot ProRAW and edit in Lightroom), but one day even that may change.
The old (and still available) brilliance slider and the new tone control with photographic styles already give you some control over HDR tone mapping in the native app. I could see Apple eventually introducing similar control for sharpening and noise reduction (obviously named something clever in Apple-style) directly in the native app.
That may actually be more feasible than allowing control over NR with ProRAW in Lightroom due to the iPhone’s complex image pipeline.
Granted they haven’t made it as easy as it should be (e.g. to reduce sharpening or eliminate HDR tone mapping you have to shoot ProRAW and edit in Lightroom), but one day even that may change.
The old (and still available) brilliance slider and the new tone control with photographic styles already give you some control over HDR tone mapping in the native app. I could see Apple eventually introducing similar control for sharpening and noise reduction (obviously named something clever in Apple-style) directly in the native app.
That may actually be more feasible than allowing control over NR with ProRAW in Lightroom due to the iPhone’s complex image pipeline.
I’ll add one thing to that, I wish that Apple would give third-party app developers more exposure time for the camera. One second exposure time really isn’t enough for a lot of things. I don’t know what the big deal is and why they restrict app developers from accessing longer exposure times with the camera for night mode or long exposure Photos. For astronomy, I can do a lot with this phone. If I was given an app that would allow 10 seconds of exposure time at my ISO choice. The Even Longer app would be great with frame averaging mode longer than 1 second per shot. The only thing that is really kept me from switching over to android, Samsung or pixel are the lack of good photo apps on the google store. Photography with the iPhone seems like it was meant to be because of all the great apps and flexibility. You don’t get that with android at all. also, I believe the iPhone is way more secure at protecting your privacy than android is.
Well it looks like the iPhone camera / image quality is on the fritz again, at least for me. Pixelated images on both ProRAW and HEIF. The latest update did not cause it, I saw the issue this morning.. the update did not help. Looks like a restore is coming… i’m getting fed up with iOS 18 I think.
Anyone else??
Anyone else??
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I do not see that on my device anymore. However i still prefer the results i got from PROCAM -ProRaw.
Well, I did a full restore a couple of times on my phone and that seemed to fix the issue again. However, whenever I pushed my full back up in, my camera went Squirrley again, so I probably have some sort of file or something in my backup that was causing an issue. So I transferred all of my camera roll photos over to a folder on my MacBook Pro and then transferred that to a Sandisk SSD. next, I took an encrypted back up and pushed my back up in without photos. Did a hard reset after the restore and now it seems to be working fine. I’ll just leave my camera roll photos on my SSD for now. About to go on a cruise anyway so I could use the extra storage
I do not have the pixelation/ blurriness issue since iOS 18.3.
However i still get slightly (10/15% and sometimes even 20% +\-) more defined/clearer photos from ProCam - ProRaw, when compared with stock ProRaw. (Wide Camera).
I gave up already with stock when shooting ProRaw (wide lens)… At least they improve greatly the format, but still don’t match the quality that ProCam presents.
Ps: I see no diference in the other lenses (ultra and tele). Both native and ProCam in ProRaw delivered the exact same results.
However i still get slightly (10/15% and sometimes even 20% +\-) more defined/clearer photos from ProCam - ProRaw, when compared with stock ProRaw. (Wide Camera).
I gave up already with stock when shooting ProRaw (wide lens)… At least they improve greatly the format, but still don’t match the quality that ProCam presents.
Ps: I see no diference in the other lenses (ultra and tele). Both native and ProCam in ProRaw delivered the exact same results.
Well sort of. After doing my restore, I took a photo and it still looked a little off. After doing a hard reset after the restore, camera image quality was back to normal. Apparently they’re still bugs in iOS 18 that need to be addressed.
ProCam is a nice app for sure. But I also want the default camera to perform perfectly as well because I like using photographic styles. Particularly black-and-white. But I also have third-party apps like RNI films, and other apps that will convert to black-and-white black Lightroom, etc. if I’m using proraw anyway, I hope there are adequate upgrades to the cameras next year on the 17, tired of Apple releasing tiny upgrades for the cameras instead of really blowing it out of the park with a nice camera. they have the technology to improve the cameras dramatically, but they just don’t do it. I know the iPhone 17 error is coming out, but that’s not gonna be a pro model, it is rumored that the pro model is going to be thicker to make room for the cameras, which is good cause I don’t like thin phones
Attached are 3 photos captured from my 16 Pro: 1 HEIF MaX and 2 ProRAW Max. They have all been converted to JPEG sized to 4032 x 3024 and zoomed 2x for ease of comparison.
The HEIF MAX was left unedited and converted to JPEG directly from the Photos app. The ProRAW DNG's were imported into Lightroom and all default settings (Apple ProRAW profile, etc.) were left untouched except for sharpening. The first ProRAW photo had sharpening left at the default amount of 50. The second ProRAW photo had sharpening amount increased to 80. They were both then exported as JPEG's.
I understand the HEIF will look sharper because Apple's processing tends to over sharpen. That's one of the main reasons I'm interested in shooting ProRAW - editing in Lightroom gives you control over the sharpening slider.
But to me the ProRAW has a weird blur that isn't really corrected by increasing the sharpening from the default value. Is this the same problem everyone has been discussing in this thread?
These were taken with 18.3.2 but I've noticed this since launch.
The HEIF MAX was left unedited and converted to JPEG directly from the Photos app. The ProRAW DNG's were imported into Lightroom and all default settings (Apple ProRAW profile, etc.) were left untouched except for sharpening. The first ProRAW photo had sharpening left at the default amount of 50. The second ProRAW photo had sharpening amount increased to 80. They were both then exported as JPEG's.
I understand the HEIF will look sharper because Apple's processing tends to over sharpen. That's one of the main reasons I'm interested in shooting ProRAW - editing in Lightroom gives you control over the sharpening slider.
But to me the ProRAW has a weird blur that isn't really corrected by increasing the sharpening from the default value. Is this the same problem everyone has been discussing in this thread?
These were taken with 18.3.2 but I've noticed this since launch.
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ProRAW is a fake RAW format. It is edited by the automatic processing before the DNG data is written. Because of this, it is impossible to remove all denoising and retrieve detail.
I have written a separate post trying to get Admin's attention to this. MacRumours should really write an article about the issue. People should start talking about this so that there is pressure on Apple to provide more control. ProRAW implies that it is a format for PROfessionals. They do their own denoising. They want control.
I currently only shoot in Regular RAW through third party apps to avoid the Apple processing. This gives me the absolute best results from the iPhone camera and I can control the end results perfectly to my liking. The level of detail on 12MP Regular RAW is sometimes even better than 48MP ProRAW. That shows how horrible the Apple processing really is.
I have also noticed that the 48MP HEIC files appears to have less denoising than ProRAW 48. That alone is a joke. How can a lossy format have more details than RAW?
Right now the only thing that saves the Apple camera is the ability to use unprocessed RAW in third party. If they would remove this feature, I could no longer use the iPhone as a daily driver.
Jajo.j - are you able to outline your process for using your iPhone 16 Pro for photos? Your pics from the master thread are incredible. From scouring the thread I’ve cobbled together the following:
ProCamera app, Bayer RAW only (Highly-Detailed setting), keep ISO as low as possible, adjust white balance followed by shadows/highlights before exporting as JPEG.
Am I missing anything significant of note? Do you use any sort of color grading profiles in Lightroom, or do any sort of subject-specific edits? Most of it I would say it probably just your incredible eye as a photographer, so keep it up. Just looking to learn from you.
I understand all that. I'm asking if the blurriness in my photos is normal for ProRAW, or a result of the bug discussed in this thread that was fixed for most with the recent updates.
Jajo.j - are you able to outline your process for using your iPhone 16 Pro for photos? Your pics from the master thread are incredible. From scouring the thread I’ve cobbled together the following:
ProCamera app, Bayer RAW only (Highly-Detailed setting), keep ISO as low as possible, adjust white balance followed by shadows/highlights before exporting as JPEG.
Am I missing anything significant of note? Do you use any sort of color grading profiles in Lightroom, or do any sort of subject-specific edits? Most of it I would say it probably just your incredible eye as a photographer, so keep it up. Just looking to learn from you.
Hello
Thanks for the kind words.
The process is right. The key is to use regular RAW instead of ProRAW. That way, the images can be denoised to liking instead of being forced to use Apples very aggressive denoise that destroy all detail. I usually use the Denoise AI from Lightroom but sometimes I just adjust luma/chroma denoise manually.
Sometimes I shoot using bracketing and merge DNG files using HDR Merge feature in Lightroom when additional dynamic range is needed. This requires shots to be taken with tripod so that there is no movement between shots.
Color temperature is usually fine as it is. Use histogram to ensure that you do not reduce highlights too much. Shadows can be adjusted by eye as long as your monitor is properly setup.
Good luck!
Heavy denoise and lack of fine details are still present. Auto Focus might have improved actually both in Standart and ProRaw modes.
I'd still recommend using Manual Focus in native cam. I'll post comparison later.
Don't know if this is slightly OT or a related issue. But my 15P 512 more often than not gets "laggy" when shooting JPEG Max 48. I haven't figured out the exact scenarios, but it seems random usually.
It reacts slower on pressing the shutter. The shutter sound also sounds "off", laggy again. Like it's slightly slowmo. And when viewing photos and zooming in, it's blurry for a while before sharpening up.
I haven't actually shot HEIF or standard 12MP JPEG since I got it.
Anyone else noticed anything similar?
It reacts slower on pressing the shutter. The shutter sound also sounds "off", laggy again. Like it's slightly slowmo. And when viewing photos and zooming in, it's blurry for a while before sharpening up.
I haven't actually shot HEIF or standard 12MP JPEG since I got it.
Anyone else noticed anything similar?
On my 16 Pro Max, after the update when I opened up the camera for HEIF Max, it was a little bit laggy at first, and the camera hasn’t done that again. It continues to be stable without any laggy issues and also the camera focuses almost immediately now instead of having the yellow box hunt around and blink on and off as it’s trying to focus on a subject. Now it’s touch to focus and focus is pretty much instant compared to before. Much better image quality seems to have improved as well. I noticed this image quality improvement by photographing leaves on trees 50+ yards away and they are sharp instead of blurry on the edges. So I’m happy with the improved focus and image quality so far. i’ll keep testing just to be sure that this is not a placebo effect lol…
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18.4 hasn't fixed anything. Auto Focus is still hit or miss in Native Camera. Too often better results are with Manual Focus.
My best advice would be to take 2 shots one with Auto Focus followed by Manual Focus on your point of interest.
My gf 15 Pro Max doesn't have these issues and also performs much better in low light. Much wider threshold for when denoise kicks in and smears everything. I'll post comparison later.
Seriously considering replacing my 16 Pro with 15 Pro Max. Standard HEIF processing is miles better on 15 series too (less noise reduction, no saturation boost, etc)
My best advice would be to take 2 shots one with Auto Focus followed by Manual Focus on your point of interest.
My gf 15 Pro Max doesn't have these issues and also performs much better in low light. Much wider threshold for when denoise kicks in and smears everything. I'll post comparison later.
Seriously considering replacing my 16 Pro with 15 Pro Max. Standard HEIF processing is miles better on 15 series too (less noise reduction, no saturation boost, etc)
I think we are all seeing better results with third party apps due to Focusing issues. Native Camera just doesn't Focus well and that's pretty much it.
It is true that third-party apps with manual focus do help. My favorite is the Pro camera by moment app which has the best focus peeking options available. Way more accurate than all the other apps because the other ones tend to oversaturate the peeking colors and it’s hard to tell where the focus starts and stops. Here’s an example of mine using the native app with HEIF. No edits and I’ve included a crop. In the past, my phone was acting funny too, so I did a restore after an update and it fixed it. After the restore was completed, I did a hard reset to get everything synchronized so to speak.
Crop