Why Apple ProRAW is Important
On October 13th, with the iPhone 12 announcements, Apple announced something that would become a huge leap for professional iPhone photographers - Apple ProRAW. Though the availability would be limited to only iPhone 12 Pro models at the time, this announcement is the most important feature to be implemented after RAW compatibility from years ago. We imagine this being available on all ‘Pro’ iPhones in the future.
Current State of RAW on iPhone
In 2014, Apple announced manual controls and RAW format for iPhone, which took iPhone photography to a whole other level. However, as the image processing on iPhones got better and smarter, RAW was left behind due to the nature of image processing pipeline. Since RAW means raw data straight out of the sensor, all the magic that the Apple ISP (Image Signal Processor) can perform was not possible. Noise reduction was a prime example of this - A RAW file, even opened in the best RAW editing software, could not come close to the clean renditions of an Apple ISP processed HEIF file.
Last few years, Apple ISP became capable of performing additional steps, especially after the introduction of Apple Neural Engine. Face detection and facial landmarking with semantic rendering are the few best examples of this. Then came Deep Fusion - ‘An advanced image processing system that uses the A13 Bionic Neural Engine to capture images with dramatically better texture, detail, and reduced noise in lower light’, as Apple described. Again, RAW fell further behind.
What Exactly is Apple ProRAW?
‘ProRAW gives you all the standard RAW information, along with the Apple image pipeline data. So you can get a head start on editing, with noise reduction and multiframe exposure adjustments already in place — and have more time to tweak color and white balance.’
– apple.com
image credit: Apple iPhone 12 Keynote. www.apple.com
Though we only have limited information at the time, we can get a basic idea that Apple ProRAW brings the power of iPhone computational photography to RAW. It will provide benefits of multi-frame image processing and computational photography, like Deep Fusion and Smart HDR, and combines them with the depth and flexibility of a RAW format - Sounds like a perfect case for professional photographers.
In order to achieve this, Apple constructed a new pipeline that takes components of the processing done on the CPU, GPU, ISP, and Neural Engine and combines them into a new Deep Image file computed at the time of capture without any shutter delay. Things like sharpening, white balance, and tone mapping become instructions rather than being baked into the photo, delivering full creative control over color, detail, and dynamic range - as Apple mentioned.
Availability
Apple mentioned that Apple ProRAW will be available later this year on iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max. Surprisingly, it will be available on the native camera app for capturing as well as on Photos app for editing . For us developers, API’s should be available shortly before. Camera M team is extremely excited about this announcement and will update Camera M with Apple ProRAW as soon after we get our hands on it. We will be updating this article as we get more information.
Update (Nov 12th, 2020)
With iOS 14.2 Beta, Apple has included the support for Apple ProRaw which includes availability with the native camera app. In camera settings, it is described as follows:
‘ProRaw is a 12-bit file that uses the Linear DNG format to retain more information and dynamic range in the file, providing additional flexibility when editing exposure and white balance. Each file is approximately 25MB.’
We will be getting our hands on the beta shortly and testing while preparing the Camera M 4.1 update that enables this capability.
Update (Dec 14th, 2020)
With iOS 14.3 update release, Apple ProRAW is officially available!