Hi again!
Recently I wrote arant post here about overprocessing of the iPhone camera or some strange API-level quirks.
The best answer I got is to shoot RAW. But unfortunately I had some strange issue with most of the popular RAW shooting applications that I purhcased back in the days, such as Halide, Camera+ and ProShot.
I had been very depressed by the fact that my iPhone cannot shoot adequate RAW image without denoising, without overexposure in auto mode, without underexposure in manual mode and just simply editable RAW that does not provide artifacts of unknown nature (ever got that feeling when editing jpeg?😃).
Then I decided to do some googling again and found nothing. Out of being desperate I asked about this in iPhone subreddit.
Believe me or not, it was a single-comment post with 0 upvote count (i.e. downvoted), but what a helpful comment it was!
A person said "Have you tried to shoot in Lightroom Mobile?". And well, I haven't touched Adobe apps for many years because of all this subscription-filled stuff they introduced and pretty invasive "Adobe cloud" on Mac.
But as I said, I was desperate. So I downloaded app, signed in with my google account (ugh😒) and then discovered the thing I haven't used since the ages of my 6s - a DNG camera. It is pretty much hidden in the app interface but I found it. Back then this app was almost unusable and very slow, I was sorta surprised they made so many under-the-hood improvements.
And then, it was the SOLUTION. I ended overprocessing of my shots. Lightroom takes actual RAW photos.
Not only I was able to see live sensor image preview there, control ISO and shutter speed but also I had not seen overexposed or underexposed shot ever since. Even the automatic mode works great and even when it sometimes overexposes it is just 1 or 2 stops and not like 6-7 stops "ruined negative". Editor in LR is also rad as it gives access to sharpening, noise reduction and color noise reduction which is a game changer for me. For a long time I was able to recreate "film look" without having to put any filters and just by editing a RAW file, which isn't as dreading in LR as in other apps.
Here is an illustration, two photos I took today. One with LR and another with ProShot. As you can see - night and day difference. I haven't done any edits to it and haven't touched the abovementioned NR and sharpness sliders but in LR I shoot with manual shutter (1/1250) and ISO (25). I could not set shutter and ISO in ProShot, neither I was able to do it in Camera+ or Halide: none of them gave the actual image from sensor and instead it was some sort of preprocessed HEIF or JPEG preview. Having said that, auto mode RAW works well in Lightroom too, I just didn't want to have smaller overexposures in comparison image (again, few stops - no problem to fix it right away in the editor). Thus comparison image shall not be seen as "fair" but just as an illustration of the issue I had with RAW images from other apps.
The moral of the story? Shoot RAW! In Lightroom Mobile.
Cause other apps just don't work or deliver their promise to provide tools for professional photography.
I have also loved their HDR RAW mode for super tricky lighting conditions.
I would like to ask people on the forum now, are there any more apps capable of shooting true RAW like Lightroom? I would be eager to add them to my collection if they work well and have even fancier UI or features
Recently I wrote a
The best answer I got is to shoot RAW. But unfortunately I had some strange issue with most of the popular RAW shooting applications that I purhcased back in the days, such as Halide, Camera+ and ProShot.
I had been very depressed by the fact that my iPhone cannot shoot adequate RAW image without denoising, without overexposure in auto mode, without underexposure in manual mode and just simply editable RAW that does not provide artifacts of unknown nature (ever got that feeling when editing jpeg?😃).
Then I decided to do some googling again and found nothing. Out of being desperate I asked about this in iPhone subreddit.
Believe me or not, it was a single-comment post with 0 upvote count (i.e. downvoted), but what a helpful comment it was!
A person said "Have you tried to shoot in Lightroom Mobile?". And well, I haven't touched Adobe apps for many years because of all this subscription-filled stuff they introduced and pretty invasive "Adobe cloud" on Mac.
But as I said, I was desperate. So I downloaded app, signed in with my google account (ugh😒) and then discovered the thing I haven't used since the ages of my 6s - a DNG camera. It is pretty much hidden in the app interface but I found it. Back then this app was almost unusable and very slow, I was sorta surprised they made so many under-the-hood improvements.
And then, it was the SOLUTION. I ended overprocessing of my shots. Lightroom takes actual RAW photos.
Not only I was able to see live sensor image preview there, control ISO and shutter speed but also I had not seen overexposed or underexposed shot ever since. Even the automatic mode works great and even when it sometimes overexposes it is just 1 or 2 stops and not like 6-7 stops "ruined negative". Editor in LR is also rad as it gives access to sharpening, noise reduction and color noise reduction which is a game changer for me. For a long time I was able to recreate "film look" without having to put any filters and just by editing a RAW file, which isn't as dreading in LR as in other apps.
Here is an illustration, two photos I took today. One with LR and another with ProShot. As you can see - night and day difference. I haven't done any edits to it and haven't touched the abovementioned NR and sharpness sliders but in LR I shoot with manual shutter (1/1250) and ISO (25). I could not set shutter and ISO in ProShot, neither I was able to do it in Camera+ or Halide: none of them gave the actual image from sensor and instead it was some sort of preprocessed HEIF or JPEG preview. Having said that, auto mode RAW works well in Lightroom too, I just didn't want to have smaller overexposures in comparison image (again, few stops - no problem to fix it right away in the editor). Thus comparison image shall not be seen as "fair" but just as an illustration of the issue I had with RAW images from other apps.
The moral of the story? Shoot RAW! In Lightroom Mobile.
Cause other apps just don't work or deliver their promise to provide tools for professional photography.
I have also loved their HDR RAW mode for super tricky lighting conditions.
I would like to ask people on the forum now, are there any more apps capable of shooting true RAW like Lightroom? I would be eager to add them to my collection if they work well and have even fancier UI or features
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