Apple’s iOS 14.3 Update Brings Advanced Photography Capabilities To The iPhone
Image via Hadrian / Shutterstock.com
Your upcoming iPhone photographs are going to look stellar, and it’s all because of a free but powerful software upgrade.
Apple’s iOS 14.3 brings some improvements to the iPhone camera, although iPhone 12 Pro owners stand to reap the most out of the update. Most especially, iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max users can now capture images in Apple’s brand new ProRAW file format, which not only lets you take RAW-style photos but also enhance them with computational techniques like Deep Fusion and Smart HDR.
For some context, with the RAW file format, you’ll be able to wring out low-level image data invisible to formats like iPhone’s HEIF, HEIC, and JPEG, therefore retaining every detail in the photo. Apple describes that this offers “full creative control over color, detail, and dynamic range,” whether you’re tweaking a picture natively from the iPhone or when using a photo editing app.
ProRAW, however, is a superior version, at least in terms of smartphone photography. If Apple were to introduce the traditional RAW format into the native camera app, the resulting photos would miss out on some of the iPhone’s advanced processing features, such as Smart HDR, bokeh and Night Mode enhanced lighting. With ProRAW, you get all the fine details and versatility of RAW plus the benefits of multi-frame image processing and computational photography.
To enable ProRAW photography, users will need to go to Settings, then tap on Camera > Formats to authorize the ProRAW format. On the native camera app, simply remove the strike from ‘RAW’ on the top-right corner. Take note that ProRAW files will take up significantly more storage space, though.
While ProRAW photos can currently only be shot on the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max, owners of devices updated to iOS 14.3 or iPadOS 14.3 can open and edit these files through the Photos app or a third-party version, like Halide Mark II for the iPhone.
Those who don’t own an iPhone 12 Pro will also enjoy a few camera improvements. With the iOS 14.3 update, iPhones 6s through X will now be able to shoot mirrored selfies. Every iPhone can now also record video in 25 fps, which can be enabled through Settings > Camera > Show PAL Formats.
To have a glimpse of how differently ProRAW photos look, check out the explainer by photographer Lee Zavitz below.
[via TechRadar and Screen Rant, cover image via Hadrian / Shutterstock.com]
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