Basically, RAW or JPEG formats require some form of compromise in either convenience or depth of editing. But Apple’s ProRAW format aims to remove those compromises.

ProRAW, in a nutshell, will capture RAW images but apply some image processing on top. This includes merging frames from several shots captured by the cameras on the iPhone 12 Pro, using Apple’s Deep Fusion and Smart HDR tech, or applying noise reduction. But it will still leave some room for editing things like color, exposure and contrast in the same depth that can be had with the RAW format.

Think of it like this: producing a finished image from RAW is like cooking a meal from scratch, including prepping all the ingredients. JPEG images on the other hand are the cooked meal. So using this analogy, ProRAW is like cooking a meal, only you have all the ingredients that are measured out and ready to use. Effectively, ProRAW provides base processing on an image for people to then much easier edit into final photographs.

You can think of ProRAW as a helping hand to your photo editing. Sorting out things like white balance and using Smart HDR 3 to pickout details and texture in RAW shots, provides a better foundation image for people to then build upon with editing. 

Doing this avoids the sometimes intimidating process of editing RAW photos from scratch, which was probably why Apple’s not offered RAW shooting on its iPhones until now. Without any processing, RAW images can look a bit flat and disappointing and can be a challenge for people inexperienced with photo manipulation to tweak to their satisfaction. 

So ProRAW will take care of the difficult parts of getting an image into shape for more refined editing, and leave finer and artistic tweaks to manual editing. Calling it ProRAW might be a bit of a misnomer as this is more of a tool for people unused or manipulating RAW images. 

That being said, for professional photographers or experienced photography enthusiasts who happen to be shooting on an iPhone 12 Pro rather than a DSLR, ProRAW could significantly speed up the time it takes to produce a finished photograph from a RAW shot. 

Smartphone photography has improved so much that even mid-range phones can capture impressive photographs. But they still can’t compete with DSLR cameras in terms of fidelity and quality of photographs. And ProRAW won’t change that. 

But it can be seen as a neat evolution of smartphone photography whereby people are provided the tools to get into deeper image manipulation but are also backed up by powerful computation photography. 

We’ve yet to try out the iPhone 12 Pro with ProRAW, but it’s definitely an interesting feature we’d been keen to put to the test. And if it proves to be a strong tool in getting better smartphone camera shots, then we can expect other smartphone makers like Samsung, Sony, and OnePlus to make their own takes on ProRAW.  

With ProRAW, the iPhone 12 could raise the smartphone photography bar. That means upcoming phones like the Samsung Galaxy S21 will really need to up their camera game in 2021.