Hello, Marie,
is that really true? we are now waiting almost a year for iPhone 11 support! The new iPhones will come in 2 months. Can we display HEIC files? Can we edit HEIC files?
Will we wait that long again when the new iPhones are released? This is a pity, because I think PhotoLab is a good software, but due to the missing functionalities I did not use it anymore and probably will not be able to use it in the future.
All the best Wolfgang
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Any news on this?!
DxO doesn’t support the iPhones of the past 3 (!) years… the last iPhone to be supported is iPhone X. HEIC is still not supported neither. DxO PL 4 released today has absolutely no news about this. I don’t even know what else to say…
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If you use a 3rd party camera app that shoots dng raw you can’t use those files either. Very, very disappointing!!
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Right, DxO PL 4 released today has absolutely nothing.
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HEIC is not at all necessary (there is no extra information in there, no 16-bit file hidden) and software publisher licensing fees are very onerous. iOS RAW such is used by Moment Pro Camera or Halide is another matter. It should be supported no matter what.
One issue with processing RAW from iPhone 11 Pro is that Apple’s processing (which allows native HDR) is so much better in mixed lighting than anything which can done with the RAW file. I almost never shoot RAW any more on my iPhone 11 as the RAW files are mediocre and the Apple processed jpegs so much better. I believe this is the reason DxO stood down on iOS RAW: comparing their work to what Apple does internally within the phone would be unfavourable to DxO.
I disagree as there are occasional shots (non-HDR/wide dynamic range) where the iOS RAW file as processed by Photolab would give a much better result.
The iPhone 12 Pro cameras come with an entirely new Apple ProRAW format which should be accessible by developers like ProRES for video. It makes all Apple’s tricks accessible so you can turn them on or off while processing the RAW.
The iPhone 12 Pro models get another computational photography technique that Apple calls ProRaw. iPhones and Android phones have been able to shoot raw photos for years, an unprocessed alternative to JPEG that lets photographers decide how best to edit an image. Apple ProRaw blends Apple computational photography with a raw format so photographers will get the benefit of noise reduction and dynamic range with the flexibility of raw images.
I am not a big fan of HEIC (unlike HEIV) but I get why people want to see support since iPhone’s are very popular cameras and converting is an extra step and you end up with duplicates if you want to keep the HEIC files
I also think it would be hard for DxO too match the Apple processing since it is very advanced and integrates every sensor in the iPhone to get to the result. But I do believe that the noise reduction would be better since the iPhone’s is not fantastic.
But 99% of times I am totally happy with the iPhone results and I have absolutely no intention to do more work on those pictures… and with the iPhone 12 photography on iPhone is making another massive step in terms of quality on your phone.
Hi, I would have preferred to avoid to be too naive in what can concern iOS files support by DxO.
First time I encountered this problem was my iPhone X vs DxO experience, when DxO staff has rejected any support to this Phone, despite its popularity and a wide customers community. It was 3 years ago. You should be astonished, but nothing is changed since then. We hear DxO’s very unreliable promises to support iPhones in the nearest future or since the very next release, but time after time the answer is the same: no real support. Don’t waste your money for nothing if you plan to use all DxO PhotoLab functions on your iOS images from your brand-new iPhone or even of a previous generation one (DxO PL4 still doesn’t support my approximately old iPhone XS Max - what’s wrong?). No one will stand a chance.
May be am I wrong, DxO? I would be glad to be…
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I do not have an iPhone nor have a phone that supports RAW. BUT many do and it concerns me that this growing number of people is being driven away from PL and as such will reduce the user base. My phone produces in jpeg photos that in many circumstance my camera would struggle to get anything as good. In most occasions the cameras can do much better and the detail is vastly better, usually. But my wife is one of those who only uses her phone now. Next time she changes phone I expect the choice of phone will take this into account, but as such and if it produces RAW which she uses on here cameras (well did) what program will she use? With out PL coming into the reality of declining camera and massively increasing phone use for photography I fear it is doomed to face a declining user base as it cuts itself off from these changing market. Which is a threat to me and those still using cameras.
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Indeed the point is beyond HEIC support or not, it’s really about commitment (or the lack of) of DxO towards supporting iPhones (or more broadly smartphones). With the impressive progress on smartphone photo quality, I now not only take pictures with my DSLR, but also with my iPhone. Surely, the JPG processing of Apple is really good, but I would be happy to get them through DxO as well (for noise processing, for a more consistency with the end-results of my DSLR pictures, etc.).
We see iPhones of the past 3 years are not supported. We see HEIC is not supported. I haven’t heard about DxO thinking about supporting ProRAW as well.
I also read DxO has no plan on supporting Apple Silicon natively ; they will let DxO run through Rosetta. Considering the already quite laggish performance of DxO on an average Mac, I’m not really enthusiastic about what the feature holds for DxO macOS users.
DxO PL4 looks nice… but (now) long-time features that were promised by some DxO staff are still not there, and there’s no light on the horizon.
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ric_anto This is it exactly. The majority of my photography these days is done on an iPhone, for which DxO at present offers nothing but unfulfilled promises. I won’t be updating to PL4 but will instead shop around for other options. Do you have a reference on the Apple silicon comment? I plan on upgrading to an ARM-based Mac once they’re available.
Yes, I found it in this article (French only, sorry):
Interrogé sur une éventuelle adaptation à Apple Silicon, l’éditeur nous a répondu qu’il n’avait pour l’instant rien prévu de spécifique pour la nouvelle architecture du Mac. Il compte sur le fait que son logiciel tournera par le biais de Rosetta.
Let’s cover this again. ProRAW is a video format, not a stills format. Does not apply to Photolab. HEIC has potential on paper but Apple for now is only using HEIC to create smaller files not better:
- Converting your files with iMazing HEIC converter comes at no quality penalty.
- Shooting in JPEG comes at no quality penalty (does take about 50% more space. but offloading or deleting non-keeper images solves the space issue).
Finally HEIC licensing is extremely expensive for small commercial software houses. Apple is a member of the HEIC patent pool so enjoy preferable terms. There are upper limits on royalties which are documented at least $65 million/year. For Apple, Samsung, Adobe or Microsoft, sums like that are chump change well-spent to keep others out of the club. Patent licensing with caps a great barrier to keep smaller companies from poaching on what the big tech companies consider chasse gardée. To make sure the FOSS community buys in and supports these codecs, those developers get limited free licenses.
By asking Photolab to include HEIC, you are asking them to slit their own throats by funding the big companies with their profitability. Out of that €75 upgrade, €17 already goes in taxes. Another minimum of 0.60¢ would go in HEIC royalties. That’s one format. As more get added, format royalties could easily reach €5/copy for smaller publishers.
As end users we all benefit long-term from unencumbered formats. We all suffer from encumbered proprietary formats. Photolab’s stance on the issue is intellectually and ethically coherent. The workarounds are trivial in this case.
In terms of supporting Apple silicon, I’m sure Photolab is just waiting for the dust to settle on the new processor architecture and its coding tools. Rushing in, making a huge expense just to see Apple turn the tools and programming API upside down twice over the first three years would be imprudent. I expect the “Rosetta” version will run just fine.
I’m more concerned that the current version is not particularly well-optimised for Mac OS X. The GPU is only used in DeepPrime. Actually it looks like the GPU is used in Photolab 4 for adjusting images and performance is much smoother. It looks like Photolab has deployed the C1 system I recommended of creating proxy files and showing changes on them. Lag on preview is significantly lower on Fit to Screen previews than 1:1 previews (but those are better too).
So GPU acceleration and faster performance on Mac have arrived. Fantastic. Just a pity that Photolab made the unfortunate decision to exclude High Sierra OS (the last which can be run on MBP 2011, themselves the last 17 inch Mac laptops and the last with non-glare screens). HEIC support is really not an issue (and like you I own an iPhone 11 Pro Max). Export to jpeg and tweak in Photolab works quite well for me (sample panoramas).
DxO should be supporting Apple RAW formats though. Currently I use Iridient Developer on Apple RAW photo files. My tests show that Apple’s internal algorithms produce better results with no time spent 90% over careful RAW processing. I prefer to spend my darkroom time on real RAW files from my Nikon than trying to outfox Apple with mediocre smart phone RAW. The reason that Apple processing is so much better than third party cameraapp makers RAW is that Apple takes several photos and combines them in post. The third party cameras can only take a single photo at a time. It’s a race they are pre-destined to lose. Still - Photolab should allow us to try to process our iPhone (and Android) RAW files.
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Regarding ProRAW, it’s for photo, not video, therefore I’m not sure to understand what you are referring to.
Regarding HEIC support, back in January DxO staff said in this same forum that they were working on it. Reading, definitely ; writing, maybe.
Where are they now, 10 months later, while a major DxO PL update has just been announced? No idea at all, since we’ve had no update since then.
If HEIC licensing fees is an issue, fine, I can fully understand it. But that’s not what they told us so far. Therefore I don’t see the point in making assumptions on something you (and I) have absolutely no clue about (unless you’re part of their staff?).
The same applies for iPhones support. And this is why I’m complaining.
Regarding Apple Silicon, same as above, please don’t make assumptions as to why they are, or aren’t, working on it. Unless you’re part of their staff, you’re just like me: you have absolutely no clue as to what their strategy is.
The point I’m trying to make here, and my worry, is that I see a lot of tiny clues pointing towards a not-so-trustworthy communication, as well as a not-so-reassuring roadmap regarding latest (Apple) devices support, be it either smartphones or laptops.
I do like the DxO PL software, but more and more I feel like I’m being fooled as to where they are (and aren’t) heading to.
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I spend a lot of time on video sites looking at the latest tech. There’s been a lot of talk about improvements coming to Apple ProRes RAW. I didn’t realise Apple had finally decided to share some of their computed image data with third party apps. High time and good news.
I don’t see this as the major change some of the others do. It’s already possible to capture RAW files on iDevices and Android. DxO should really be supporting processing of RAW files from mobile devices. It’s darkly amusing to note that DxO Mark, the sister company of DxO, the software company, now tests almost exclusively mobile devices (fortunately DxO Mark have picked up the pace on testing camera sensors and select lenses again: I’ve found their tests enormously useful).
As iDevices and Android phones are able to save RAW files via third party apps, we should be able to open up and process them in Photolab, even if the results are not always the best (no access to computational tools yet) and very small sensors.
When ProRAW (just a fancy marketing buzzword for bundling in some of the additional computation photography data) comes available, DxO should support that as well.
Apple Silicon is another issue. As a software developer myself, I know exactly the perils of jumping on a train too early to find out one has spent years chasing one’s tail as the entire framework will be thrown out or rewritten. Apple Silicon is certainly coming but best practices in terms of recoding sophisticated apps for it are some way off. I anticipate that if huge performance benefits for Photolab are clear, DxO will move quickly to take advantage of that opportunity to rewrite as native. If on the other hand, running an interpreted version of the existing provides 80% of the performance of a full native rewrite, I imagine it might take DxO some time to get around to rewriting Photolab for the new Apple Silicon. Maintaining two full versions of Photolab (Mac and Windows) is a lot of work. Adding a third, Apple Silicon native,
Thinking harder on the issue, it’s clear that Photolab are using a very good framework to be able to publish almost identical versions of the app on both Mac and Windows. Whatever framework Photolab is using, they are using better than most developers in the space (as Photolab appears as native or near native to both Mac and Windows users). But since there are some tools underneath the chameleon, Photolab has their hands tied until their third party framework developer provides a roadmap to Apple Silicon.
Let’s chase the rabbit in front of us though – HEIC is not important (no technical advantage) and a large ongoing annual licensing expense for DxO – but support for RAW files from current iOS and Android is long overdue.
Since I have some files on hand and most of the relevant software installed, I decided to systematically look at iPhone HEIC and DNG support some of the major photo viewers/triage tools and RAW developers.
Browsers
FastRawViewer
Shows iPhone DNG, png and jpg. Does not show HEIC.
ApolloOne
Displays iPhone jpg, png, HEIC and DNG perfectly. Should do as ApolloOne includes two decoders, one libraw and the other Apple’s own system tools. You have full access to a histogram and to detailed EXIF and IPTC information as well as star ratings.
ApolloOne would be a good inexpensive choice for image triage before processing.
PhotoMechanic Plus 6
Opens iPhone DNG, HEIC, jpg. Very fast doing so. Very useful tool for rating and managing iPhone images! Surprise, surprise. On the other hand, Photo Mechanic would be total overkill for iPhone image management. If you are using Photomechanic already though for pro work, you can keep using the tool you know best.
Apple Finder Mojave
Will show HEIC and iPhone DNG photos with large thumbnails. Quicklook works as well. No way to rate but a simple tool like Lyn or Lilyview which use Apple’s own display libraries do work.
Raw Developers
Photolab 4 Photo Browser
Sees iPhone DNG but will not open them. Does not show HEIC images. Opens iPhone jpeg only.
Irident Developer.
Opens iPhone DNG for processing. Ignores HEIC as RAW only.
Iridient Developer’s extreme highlight recovery proved to be very useful on some tough images. Best of the lot, as you are very close to the actual RAW data.
CaptureOne 12
Will not see or import iPhone HEIC or even JPEG files. It’s a RAW editor only. Will import iPhone DNG.
Adequate results. Did better on recovering highlights than Lightroom. No native profile so there’s some work to be done setting up a viable workflow. The work to turn these RAW images into something viable makes me look longingly at my D850, my Z6, my Z50 and even my son’s D3300.
Adobe Lightroom Classic
Sees, imports and processes everything.
Results of DNG processing: taking a well-exposed file and applying a simple S-curve, attempting to dial back the highlights was very poor. Much worse than what I get out of the iPhone using Apple’s own processing.
Apple Photos
Not tested this round as I don’t want to open it up and have it start chewing through my images and/or hiding them but Photos app will work with all of these. Might do a better job than the third party apps.
Quality Test
I can see why Photolab is trying to avoid mobile DNG files: they are just not very good. When DxO showed serious interest in supporting mobile phones, there had been some movement in 2014 to more interesting phone sensors with phones like the 1 inch Panasonic DMC-CM1 and Nokia Lumia 1020 coming to market. Heck DxO put out its own DxO One at the time. Finally Huawei is now building some larger sensor phones again as well.
iPhone internally processed versions of the same photos I tried processing in CaptureOne manage to take backlighting and turn it into something magical. If I were taking iPhone DNG processing seriously, I’d certainly like to have Prime available to try and control the noise everywhere.
I don’t have time for a proper quality test now. The grown up commercial tools (Luminar and On1 don’t count) which will handle iPhone DNG files are Iridient Developer, Adobe Lightroom Classic and CaptureOne.
Apple Photos doesn’t really count either as a pro application but I’d have to test it, as it’s the native tool. As Apple Photos disappears one’s images into a proprietary database, I wouldn’t want to use it for anything.
Recommendation
Image review/triage/management with ApolloOne with raw processing in Iridient Developer. HEIC images should be converted before review to jpeg where they can be directly opened up in Photolab. Perspective and noise could be treated in Photolab from exports from Iridient Developer (HQ NR only of course). An expert Affinity Photo or Photoshop editor might prefer to do perspective and noise reduction there.
I’d love to hear about successful recipes for obtaining the best possible images from iPhone DNG from other Photolab users.
I missed an important point about Apple Photos: if you are working with the depth of field effects, those can be saved into the HEIC files and manipulated in Apple Photos.
\What is critical however is that the file is shot using the HEIF format because that’s the only way we can save the depth map needed to create the shallow DOF simulation.
If Apple Photos turns out to have much better support of HEIF files then it would make sense to use it and not even ask DxO for Photolab support for iPhone, as it’s a playing field on which they can’t win without enormous extra work (proprietary info). The future ProRAW improvements bought up by Marc @m-photo become very important to worthwhile iPhone DNG support in Photolab.
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Well, thanks for this lengthy review. I’ll have a look at ApolloOne (I’m using FastRawViewer for DSLR images today) and Irident.
So far I’m only using Apple Photos to manage (browse/develop) iPhone images. The tests I made with the JPG in PhotoLab were never conclusive.
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You can add me to the list of people who are annoyed by the lack of RAW support for recent iPhones. In my case, that’s the XR, which I’ve now owned for nearly two years.
Whatever your opinion of phone cameras, they’re the one camera that people tend to have with them at all times. I’d never willingly choose to rely on an iPhone camera over something more capable, but at the end of the day, if I’m in a bar with friends or watching a band perform, the chances are that I’m not carrying a bulky camera, but I have my phone on me. That also tends to mean that the iPhone usually gets broken out in less than ideal light, which means that the out of camera JPEGs tend to be someone spoiled by excessive noise reduction and loss of detail. Being able to apply PRIME noise reduction could easily make the difference between a poor photo of a once in a lifetime moment, and a decent one.
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Hey. What can I say. When I purchased PL3 I checked for iPhone camera support. It was there for some older iPhones and I assumed it would be added soon for the iPhone 11. Apparently this is not in DXO’s plans. I wasted my money as I was trying to buy 1 raw processing app for my Canon and my iPhone pics. I am in the process of evaluating different apps and have removed PL3 from my computer. It was a total waste of money.
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Incorrect. Let’s not confuse ProRes Raw and ProRaw.
The latter is a DNG Raw format, for stills. It is available right now on iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max, running iOS 14.3 (which is available in Beta and I have running on my phone). It isn’t available on earlier iPhone models because none of them have the computational performance that comes with the new A14 chip that is required to do the real time processing (Smart HDR3, Deep Fusion, computational Portrait, Night mode, etc). The image data is then mapped into a DNG raw file that, while containing the computational image, also provides extensive raw editing of exposure, white balance, curves, sharpness, etc.
How do I know this - because I have tried it. And I can edit some truly astonishing mixed light and low light ProRaw images directly in Adobe Lightroom on my iPad.
So now, I need to decide whether I should spend $70 to upgrade from DXO3 to DXO4. What I am reading on these forums is not encouraging - I truly do think DXO needs to invest in iPhone support.
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Now that there is an official iPhone Raw file it makes more sense, yes.
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