4 ms·

I don't understand the appeal here. When Microsoft added some RAW support for Windows, I've never used it for anything except thumbnails in File Explorer. If

by Arainach 11mo ago

I don't understand the appeal here. When Microsoft added some RAW support for Windows, I've never used it for anything except thumbnails in File Explorer. If you're shooting RAW it's because you want to edit the photos in the kind of tool that will never be natively included in the OS. Otherwise shoot JPEG (or whatever format the iPhone shoots because universal standards are never good enough for Apple)

xattt 11mo ago
I thought iOS exported DNG…
- Ayesh 11mo ago
  iOS shoots HEIF natively I think. Raw photos probably are shot in DNG. DNG "images" are popular for raw images because theyb can be losslessly converted from to the camera raw formats like the Nikon's, and DNG is open source and royalty free.
  - buildbot 11mo ago
    Natively it’s coming off the sensor like everything else, raw 8-16bit values. The OS then takes that stream and packages it into whatever, which on iOS can be a DNG, optionally pre-debayered with ai stuff in it (proraw), or just a standard, bayer mosaiced DNG, or JPEG, or HEIF, or JPEG XL. Depending on the RAW, a conversion to DNG may not be lossless.
    - alistairSH 11mo ago
      And unless I missed something, the default Camera app doesn't support "unprocessed DNG" - you need an app like Halide. Camera app only does JPG/HEIC or ProRAW. And as the sibling comment says, it's a confusing UX, split between the Settings app and the Camera app. Not that it matters to most users, who only need/want the default HEIC.
      - buildbot 11mo ago
        The OS supports it is all I was saying.
- kccqzy 11mo ago
  The iOS camera format control is one of the most confusing UIs in iOS. It first asks you to select between high efficiency and most compatible (HEIF vs JPEG). Then it asks you whether you want ProRAW. Then under ProRAW it asks whether you want JPEG lossless, JPEG XL lossless or lossy. That doesn’t even include the in-app control of JPEG Max (which AFAIK is just 48 MP JPEG).
- buildbot 11mo ago
  It’s capable of doing so but is not the default for the built in camera app
mr_toad 11mo ago
> because universal standards are never good enough for Apple JPEG is almost as outdated as SMS.
- Arainach 11mo ago
  Old doesn't mean outdated. TCP is ancient and we still use it for a bunch of stuff. JPEG is good enough, not encumbered by IP concerns, and universally supported. That makes it better than an alternative that is "better" in a less important dimension but worse in broad support.
  - Kirby64 11mo ago
    JPEG only supports up to 8 bit color. It has much worse compression than more modern standards. It doesn't support alpha transparency. It doesn't support many of the modern smartphone image embedding functions (image sequences, derivatives/edited images, small movies embedded in the image). You could make the same arguments about any of the wide variety of outdated video formats. This sort of thinking leads to a lack of progress in the industry.
    - Arainach 11mo ago
      8 bits and no transparency is good enough for many 9s worth of the photos people take. I have a calibrated HDR monitor. I have a camera that can shoot in 12bit color. And what HDR support does is just cause me pain. I don't find it beneficial in games. I find it to have limited utility in video. I never need more than 8 bits when sending photos to friends or having them printed. The extra support other formats offer gives me no value. If you want transparency you want some other format, but no camera I know of records an alpha channel.
      - Kirby64 11mo ago
        Transparency is useful immediately for any editing. Why is that so hard to have support even if it’s unused? Also, the other formats are useful and provide value: if you send a photo to people, the “live” portion of the photo is sent automatically for compatible receivers. It’s only beneficial. If that’s not enough, why wouldn’t you want similar compression quality at half the file size? That really, really adds up with tons of photos.
kccqzy 11mo ago
I think Apple still has aspirations to include professional-level photography in their OS so a photographer could do advanced RAW edits with just the OS. The article says: > photographers can take full advantage of Apple’s fantastic RAW engine, even when Apple itself does not support a RAW file, which is, unfortunately, a common problem for photographers using macOS, of which there are many. And I’m also curious about how this RAW engine is fantastic even when it doesn’t support a RAW file. I guess people who actually shoot RAW can answer that. (I shoot JPEG on my camera.)
- alistairSH 11mo ago
  Apple bought Pixelmator/Photomator last year, though I have no idea what their roadmap looks like or if they plan to turn those into native apps or OS features. Every camera manufacturer has their own RAW format. Apple produces a general-purpose RAW engine that can process many of those formats, but not all of them, and with a few notable misses, as noted in the linked article. The RAW engine is considered pretty good, fast/efficient, but overly aggressive on some of its defaults (noise reduction to the point of detail loss). The native Photos app also doesn't have many advanced RAW tools for editing the RAWs. I posted my current workflow in a sibling - basically, I use Photomator for edits (Lightroom competitor, now owned by Apple) and Photos for library management and sharing. Works fine for me as a enthusiasts, but unlikely to work for a professional (and probably not for enthusiasts who like tinkering with their photos more than I do).
- kjkjadksj 11mo ago
  Well they shouldn’t have shitcanned Aperture then
alistairSH 11mo ago
I occasionally shoot RAW, use Apple's OSes, and primarily shoot with an OM-System mirrorless camera. Currently, I'm using Photomator alongside Apple Photos. Workflow is roughly... - Import photos from camera into Photos - Edit photos in Photomator - Share photos to Shared Library in Photos Wife will also share her photos via Shared Library so I can edit. For non-professional this works well. Native file library integration (including shared library and shared albums), edit across all OS variants (iOS, iPadOS, MacOS), and Photomator is as close to native as you can get today (they're owned by Apple).
- Joeri 11mo ago
  I am too worried about ballooning icloud storage to add raws to apple’s photos, but the workflow appeals to me.
  - alistairSH 11mo ago
    Yeah, that's a problem for sure. I mitigate by shooting JPG most of the time, only going to RAW for shots I think will need the sort of editing RAW enables. So, maybe 10-20% of my shots are RAW, at most. And for most of those, after edits, I'll export back into Photos as a new file, and remove the original RAW. Obviously, this is destructive, so it might not appeal to you, but it does side-step the RAW storage conundrum.
- Almondsetat 11mo ago
  OM-System provides a software to edit RAWs
  - alistairSH 11mo ago
    MacOS only. I usually travel with an iPad.

xattt 11mo ago

I thought iOS exported DNG…

Ayesh 11mo ago
iOS shoots HEIF natively I think. Raw photos probably are shot in DNG. DNG "images" are popular for raw images because theyb can be losslessly converted from to the camera raw formats like the Nikon's, and DNG is open source and royalty free.
- buildbot 11mo ago
  Natively it’s coming off the sensor like everything else, raw 8-16bit values. The OS then takes that stream and packages it into whatever, which on iOS can be a DNG, optionally pre-debayered with ai stuff in it (proraw), or just a standard, bayer mosaiced DNG, or JPEG, or HEIF, or JPEG XL. Depending on the RAW, a conversion to DNG may not be lossless.
  - alistairSH 11mo ago
    And unless I missed something, the default Camera app doesn't support "unprocessed DNG" - you need an app like Halide. Camera app only does JPG/HEIC or ProRAW. And as the sibling comment says, it's a confusing UX, split between the Settings app and the Camera app. Not that it matters to most users, who only need/want the default HEIC.
    - buildbot 11mo ago
      The OS supports it is all I was saying.
kccqzy 11mo ago
The iOS camera format control is one of the most confusing UIs in iOS. It first asks you to select between high efficiency and most compatible (HEIF vs JPEG). Then it asks you whether you want ProRAW. Then under ProRAW it asks whether you want JPEG lossless, JPEG XL lossless or lossy. That doesn’t even include the in-app control of JPEG Max (which AFAIK is just 48 MP JPEG).
buildbot 11mo ago
It’s capable of doing so but is not the default for the built in camera app

mr_toad 11mo ago

> because universal standards are never good enough for Apple JPEG is almost as outdated as SMS.

Arainach 11mo ago
Old doesn't mean outdated. TCP is ancient and we still use it for a bunch of stuff. JPEG is good enough, not encumbered by IP concerns, and universally supported. That makes it better than an alternative that is "better" in a less important dimension but worse in broad support.
- Kirby64 11mo ago
  JPEG only supports up to 8 bit color. It has much worse compression than more modern standards. It doesn't support alpha transparency. It doesn't support many of the modern smartphone image embedding functions (image sequences, derivatives/edited images, small movies embedded in the image). You could make the same arguments about any of the wide variety of outdated video formats. This sort of thinking leads to a lack of progress in the industry.
  - Arainach 11mo ago
    8 bits and no transparency is good enough for many 9s worth of the photos people take. I have a calibrated HDR monitor. I have a camera that can shoot in 12bit color. And what HDR support does is just cause me pain. I don't find it beneficial in games. I find it to have limited utility in video. I never need more than 8 bits when sending photos to friends or having them printed. The extra support other formats offer gives me no value. If you want transparency you want some other format, but no camera I know of records an alpha channel.
    - Kirby64 11mo ago
      Transparency is useful immediately for any editing. Why is that so hard to have support even if it’s unused? Also, the other formats are useful and provide value: if you send a photo to people, the “live” portion of the photo is sent automatically for compatible receivers. It’s only beneficial. If that’s not enough, why wouldn’t you want similar compression quality at half the file size? That really, really adds up with tons of photos.

kccqzy 11mo ago

I think Apple still has aspirations to include professional-level photography in their OS so a photographer could do advanced RAW edits with just the OS. The article says: > photographers can take full advantage of Apple’s fantastic RAW engine, even when Apple itself does not support a RAW file, which is, unfortunately, a common problem for photographers using macOS, of which there are many. And I’m also curious about how this RAW engine is fantastic even when it doesn’t support a RAW file. I guess people who actually shoot RAW can answer that. (I shoot JPEG on my camera.)

alistairSH 11mo ago
Apple bought Pixelmator/Photomator last year, though I have no idea what their roadmap looks like or if they plan to turn those into native apps or OS features. Every camera manufacturer has their own RAW format. Apple produces a general-purpose RAW engine that can process many of those formats, but not all of them, and with a few notable misses, as noted in the linked article. The RAW engine is considered pretty good, fast/efficient, but overly aggressive on some of its defaults (noise reduction to the point of detail loss). The native Photos app also doesn't have many advanced RAW tools for editing the RAWs. I posted my current workflow in a sibling - basically, I use Photomator for edits (Lightroom competitor, now owned by Apple) and Photos for library management and sharing. Works fine for me as a enthusiasts, but unlikely to work for a professional (and probably not for enthusiasts who like tinkering with their photos more than I do).
kjkjadksj 11mo ago
Well they shouldn’t have shitcanned Aperture then

alistairSH 11mo ago

I occasionally shoot RAW, use Apple's OSes, and primarily shoot with an OM-System mirrorless camera. Currently, I'm using Photomator alongside Apple Photos. Workflow is roughly... - Import photos from camera into Photos - Edit photos in Photomator - Share photos to Shared Library in Photos Wife will also share her photos via Shared Library so I can edit. For non-professional this works well. Native file library integration (including shared library and shared albums), edit across all OS variants (iOS, iPadOS, MacOS), and Photomator is as close to native as you can get today (they're owned by Apple).

Joeri 11mo ago
I am too worried about ballooning icloud storage to add raws to apple’s photos, but the workflow appeals to me.
- alistairSH 11mo ago
  Yeah, that's a problem for sure. I mitigate by shooting JPG most of the time, only going to RAW for shots I think will need the sort of editing RAW enables. So, maybe 10-20% of my shots are RAW, at most. And for most of those, after edits, I'll export back into Photos as a new file, and remove the original RAW. Obviously, this is destructive, so it might not appeal to you, but it does side-step the RAW storage conundrum.
Almondsetat 11mo ago
OM-System provides a software to edit RAWs
- alistairSH 11mo ago
  MacOS only. I usually travel with an iPad.