Understanding ProRAW

Ben Sandofsky, writing at the Halide blog:

Apple is now a company that designs its own silicon, and it’s very good at it. Cameras are a huge driving factor in phone purchases. It seems inevitable for Apple to innovate in the realm of sensors. Taking over the demosaic step would smooth such a transition. Hypothetically speaking, they could swap out their current bayer sensors with an “Apple C1,” and so long as it saves in ProRAW, it would work from day one in every pro photography process and app like Lightroom without having to wait for Adobe to write a new demosaic algorithm.

Really great explanation of what RAW photography really means, broadly, but this specific point above is clearly why Apple worked with Adobe to create ProRAW rather than just make regular straight-off-the-sensor RAW a thing on iPhones. (ProRAW debuted in iOS 14.3 for iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max.)

★ Saturday, 26 December 2020