Taking a RAW photo is only half of the journey. Here’s how to edit your ProRAW image and turn it into something you can share.
Apple’s ProRAW camera feature is a powerful tool to have in your back pocket. An image taken in ProRAW mode combines the same great post-processing flexibility of a traditional RAW file with the benefits of multi-frame computational photography. Kind of the best of both worlds! But once you’ve gone through the steps to enable it on your iPhone and have taken your photo, that’s when the real work starts: processing and converting it to a shareable format like JPEG, PNG, or HEIF.
ProRAW files are saved in Adobe’s ubiquitous DNG format, which is compatible with virtually every RAW photo editing app under the sun. That means you have a lot of options, including just sending the file to a computer and using desktop software. But you don’t need access to a computer — you can process your image right on your phone, either using a third-party app or Apple’s own editing tools. Here’s how to go about it. (I followed these steps on an iPhone 14 Pro running iOS 16.3.1.)
You don’t need to download a separate app to edit ProRAW DNG files — Apple’s own Photos app will do the job. A third-party app will give you a lot more control, but for quick and basic functions like boosting exposure, Apple’s app is just fine.
- Open your RAW photo and tap edit in the top right of the screen
- If you’re viewing your image in the camera app gallery, the edit options will appear at the bottom of the screen
- Scroll through the adjustment options below your image and use the tools you would like
- You can tap the three-ring filter icon at the bottom of the screen to apply a filter. This is not to be confused with Apple’s Photographic Styles, which are “baked in” to the capture process
- If you need to rotate the photo, use the crop tool, the icon on the bottom right of the editing pane
- Tap Done at the bottom right of your screen to save your changes. There’s no option to save it as a separate image, but you can always revert your changes to the original by opening it again in the Photos app, tapping the three-dot menu icon in the upper right, and choosing Revert to Original.
Once you’ve made edits to your RAW file, you can use the Photos app’s sharing functions to export a JPEG version of your image. You can email it, post it to Instagram, or put it on your digital picture frame — it’s your choice.