RAW Power for iOS FAQ


Is my camera supported by RAW Power?

RAW Power includes support for a very large number of cameras because it uses the RAW engine built into iOS. In addition, on iOS 14, RAW Power has extended support for many cameras and formats, including compressed Fujifilm images. The list of supported cameras (and any limitations) can be found here.


How does the Send to RAW Power Extension work?

Send to RAW Power is an extension added to RAW Power 2.1 for iOS. It works by integrating with the Share menu in iOS apps. Apps that can share images typically will be able to use the Send to RAW Power extension. Images that you share this way will be added to the Photos library in a special album called “Sent to RAW Power”. If you share a single image, then RAW Power will open that image into the RAW Power editor. If you share multiple images, then the app will display the thumbnail grid.

Here are some important notes about it:

  • The extension may not appear when you tap the Share button. If it does not, look for the “More” (or “…” button). Tap that, slide the switch, and tap Done.
  • Not all apps properly support the Share system for RAWs. Some will send a RAW, others will convert the RAW to a JPEG. The Send to RAW Power extension does not have control over that. If the image is a RAW+JPEG, then the sending app will send one or the other, but not both.
  • The Kingston Mobilite G3 app sometimes fails to send images to RAW Power. This is a bug in Mobilite itself (thanks to Barry N. for his work troubleshooting this). As a workaround, you can add files from Mobilite to Offline, or to your iOS device first, and then use Files.app to send them to RAW Power.

What is the Copy to RAW Power Extension?

Copy to RAW Power is an extension added to RAW Power 3.0 for iOS. It works by integrating with the Share menu in iOS apps. If you use that extension to share an image to RAW Power, then that image will be saved in the Files.app storage container for RAW Power (not in the Photos library). If you share a single image, then RAW Power will open that image into the RAW Power editor. If you share multiple images, then the app will display the thumbnail grid.

Here are some important notes about it:

  • The extension may not appear when you tap the Share button. If it does not, look for the “More” (or “…” button). Tap that, slide the switch, and tap Done.
  • Not all apps properly support the Share system for RAWs. Some will send a RAW, others will convert the RAW to a JPEG. The Send to RAW Power extension does not have control over that. If the image is a RAW+JPEG, then the sending app will send one or the other, but not both.

Do you support DNG?

Yes. RAW Power supports DNG, including linear DNG files and iPhone RAW files. However, some DNGs from DJI are not supported as is. To check to see if your DNGs will work, open them in Apple’s Preview application for the Mac. If they work in Preview, then RAW Power also supports them. If they are not supported, you can use Adobe’s DNG Converter to batch-convert them to a version of DNG supported by RAW Power. You can download DNG Converter here:

macOS
Windows
For more information on performing this batch conversion, please contact us on our support page.


How do I get iPhone RAWs into RAW Power?

Except on the iPhone 12 Pro, the built in Camera app does not shoot RAW images. You will have to use a separate app. Many apps do not save RAWs to the Camera Roll, but a few do. Halide is the preferred camera app for RAW Power, because it integrates with RAW Power directly. The next question discusses Halide integration further.


How does Halide integration work?

There is a Halide button at the bottom of the RAW Power Albums view. If you tap it, Halide will open. If you do not have Halide installed, it will ask you if you want to view the app on the App Store. When you are in Halide, you can open RAW Power by tapping the button at the bottom of the Halide photo viewer (not the live camera view). Halide supports editors other than RAW Power. To select RAW Power, “long press” on the button at the bottom. Halide will display a picker. After that, you can just single tap on the button. Halide will send the image to RAW Power, and RAW Power will open the image directly into Edit interface.


How do I zoom in and out?

Double-tap to zoom to 100%. Double-tap again to return to zoom-to-fit.
If you pinch to zoom, RAW Power will stop at 100% initially. Pinch again to go past 100%, all the way up to 800%.


Is there a User Manual for RAW Power?

Yes. Tap here to download the manual (PDF)


What are the circles next to the histogram?

Those circles light up whenever there is pixel data being clipped in that channel (brighter than can be displayed). There are indicators for red, green, and blue. If you tap on any of the red, green, and blue circles, it engages the “hot pixels” feature for that channel only. Tapping on the gray circle shows hot and cold pixels, where red means a pixel is clipped in red, green, or blue, and where blue means a pixel is black (0.0 in all three channels).


Where does RAW Power store its edits?

RAW Power is a fully non-destructive editor and stores its adjustment information in the iOS Photo library if you use Photos. If you are using Files, then it stores the information in a “sidecar” file. The adjustment information is a small amount of data that includes “instructions” for applying the adjustments — the original image is never modified. If you use iCloud Photo Library, that adjustment information gets synced to iCloud and sent to all your other devices using that iCloud Photo Library.


Why don’t I see the Depth Effect for my Portrait iPhone images?

The Depth Effect is only available for images shot on iOS 11 or later. Previous versions of iOS do not store depth information with the image. If you believe the image was show on iOS 11 or later, but you still don’t see the depth effect, it is possible that the depth information was stripped out of the file. This can happen when emailing or sharing images.


Why don’t I see the People, Places, or Recently Deleted Albums in RAW Power?

Unfortunately, those albums are maintained by the built-in Photos app and are not accessible to other apps.


Why don’t I see a RAW Processing adjustment for my image?

RAW Processing only appears for RAW images — not for JPEGs, PNGs or other image formats.

It is also possible your original RAW was adjusted in another app (Photos on either iOS or macOS, iPhoto, Aperture or perhaps another iOS app). That is because, when you adjust an image on iOS and save it back to the system photo library, the editing app provides iOS with a full-size JPEG (the original RAW is then “hidden” from view). By doing this, other apps can use the adjusted image without knowing how it was made. To get back to the RAW, use Photos to revert the image (by going into Edit in Photos and tapping Revert).


Does RAW Power support lens correction?

Yes. Apple’s RAW Engine automatically corrects distortion and shading for cameras with fixed lenses (e.g., Sony RX100, Leica Q, etc.). It also corrects many images that have lens profile information stored in the RAW files (e.g, Fuji X-T20). New in RAW Power 3.3: Manual Lens Correction: Distortion, Devignette with semi-automatic mode.


When should I use Boost?

There are two reasons to use Boost. The first reason is to get the best results for over-exposed images. For those images, decrease the value of Boost to 0.5 or less before using other sliders like Exposure or Recovery. This will allow you to minimize the amount of Exposure or Recovery you need to apply, keeping the image bright. The second reason to use Boost is to get a flatter-looking (more “raw”) image before adding adjustments like Saturation.


What does Recovery do?

Recovery works like “selective exposure.” It affects the brightest areas but without touching the shadows or midtones.


What is the best way to use the White Balance Sampler?

It’s best to identify a reasonably-sized area in your image that should be a neutral gray. Don’t pick a bright white area.


What is the difference between RAW Sharpen and the Sharpen adjustment?

RAW Sharpen (found in the RAW Fine Tuning adjustment) is a subtle sharpener that works as part of the RAW decoding itself. The Sharpen adjustment is a luminance-oriented sharpener that runs after decoding, but still operates on the linear data found in RAW files.


What do the Linear / Gamma and Luminance / Equal RGB controls in Curves do?

The label of the buttons indicates the current state of the control, so if you see “Linear”, then Curves is operating in a Linear mode, but if you see Gamma, then Curves is processing in a gamma-corrected mode. This is also true for the Luminance / Equal RGB button.

RAW Power works with floating point, linear pixel data. If you choose Linear for Curves, then Curves will manipulate the linear pixel data as is. If you choose Gamma, then Curves will gamma-correct the pixels, apply the curve, and then undo the gamma-correction (so the pixel data is converted back into linear values).

Equal RGB means that the Combined curve will apply changes to the Red, Green, and Blue components of each pixel equally. This will affect any tint the image has. However, if you choose Luminance, then the Combined curve will modify the luminance value of each pixel, and will not affect the tint.


Are there any tutorial videos for RAW Power?

Yes. There are tutorials on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7l78rOzFxaHG-e5AT-MGWQ