Support for the upcoming new RAW format starting with iPhone 12 Pro.
Let’s have a look if it is worth it ?
Maybe it is an iOS only or macOS compatible format / toolkit.
Windows ?
ProRAW is a video format, not a stills format. Since Photolab is focused on stills, ProRAW has no impact on Photolab.
The iPhone has shot RAW for quite a few generations now. I believe RAW photos came with iOS 10. To take RAW photos on iOS, use a third party camera like Pro Camera by Moment or Halide.
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What’s the point of what you posted here Marc. ProRAW is for video, not for stills.
Are you suggesting DxO should get in the video processing business? It’s conceivable I admit (at one point in the dark ages, editors were processing video in Photoshop frame by frame with fancy actions) but a quite out of date strategy.
From what I understand ProRes RAW is for video while ProRAW is a still image.
As for the original question, we still don’t know enough about this format at the moment to tell if it would be worth it, especially if to benefit from it we would need to make use of the multiple RAW images embedded in it.
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This screenshot is from the iPhone page and specific to photography, not video.
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Could you please post a link to the whole page then. ProRes RAW is a video format. Apple already has a still RAW format which apparently Photolab no longer supports (they should).
Hi Lucas,
I totally agree. This could be a very specific market, even, only a macOS PL niche depending on the technology at disposal (I mean here if it needs special API from Apple that are not available on Windows).
This post is to draw attention on this specific new RAW format.
If it makes sense and if there are millions of iPhone and potential customers for this format, how many will want to use PL for their edits ?
Check, wait and see…
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Exactly, but we’re talking of “ProRAW” format here 
And I’ve not seen much documentation about it yet.
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ProRAW is a still image format coming in the future: link. It was announced during the recent iPhone 12 product introduction. Information is very thin at present. It’s not a raw format in the sense of capturing raw data off the sensor—some processing is being applies. But this makes sense in that much of the power in iPhone photography comes from fusing multiple images with different exposures.
ProRes is a lossy but high resolution video format used extensively in video production.
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Thanks for the link Andreas, it’s a good one. The conversation in the comments about the merit of Apple’s existing RAW format is an interesting one.
So we are castigating DxO for not supporting a RAW format which Apple has not even released yet? Given the pace of support for new cameras and formats, it’s good to start early I suppose.
Very nice of Apple to restrict software only features to the latest hardware (hinted in the article: perhaps Apple will have the good sense to include ProRAW in an OS update for all iPhone X and higher phones which include those HDR features). If this is not rolled out to at least the iPhone 11 Pro, I’m about done with Apple’s corporate greed and the MBA types running the company thinking always about next quarter. No long term vision here, as always characterised Apple under (RIP) Steve.
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A few news…
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I have iOS 14.3 Beta running and the ProRaw results I am getting are impressive. Also, I can already edit the DNG files directly on my iPad using Adobe Lightroom - and I’m amazed at what I can do with mixed light and low light photos, taken hand-held. The results I am getting out of my iPhone 12 Pro Max sensors are nothing short of astonishing.
Here’s an example taken with iPhone 12 Pro Max ProRaw DNG:
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I was quite disappointed to see that DxO had stopped supporting iphone’s DNG files.
I hope Apple ProRAW will be the opportunity for DxO to get back on this… as probably a lot more people will use it as it is available directly on apple camera app.
Lightroom already supports it… I hope dxo will do the same.
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Example shadow recovery with ProRAW: link.
They’re promising a deep-dive into ProRAW tomorrow.
Interesting read: Understanding ProRAW
“This may be surprising to some: ProRAW is not a proprietary or closed format. Credit where it is due: Apple deserves kudos for bringing their improvements to the DNG standard. When you shoot with ProRAW, there’s absolutely nothing locking your photos into the Apple ecosystem.”
There used to be some support for my iPhone SE (original) RAWs taken with halide within DxO Photolab. Now that I have upgraded to iOS 14.3, this support is gone because Apple presumably has changed something into the iphone raw format. Given that I have an oldish iphone now I presume that compatibility of Dxo photolab with any iphone upgraded to 14.3 is gone. This should give incentive to DxO for looking a bit more into the problem and restoring iphone compatibility all along the way.
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A followup to my previous message - the Halide+ios14 problem with Photolab is not due to the iso update, but entirely Halide’s. I can still read iPhone raws produced by Lightroom mobile in Photolab.
This incidentally highlights a problematic aspect of hectic mobile software updates - The software gets very easily broken, and very easily no longer supported. You sometimes pay for something you’re not even sure to keep for a full year.
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From what I’ve heard, Apple’s ProRAW is based on their work with Adobe to upgrade the DNG specification to version 1.6, so that is what would be ideal for PhotoLab to support.
If an Optics Module could also be provided for the iPhone 12 Pro/Pro Max that would be the icing on the cake. I personally have no interest in this, but I am constantly promoting PhotoLab to anyone who will listen and the two things that repeatedly come up are current iPhone support and Fuji X-Trans support. At least in the circles I operate, those are the two big-ticket improvements to many more customers.
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Some mobile RAW support (Android included) is welcome. But I figure that this is a difficult topic to implement.