# Comparing photos taken with iPhone 13 using Apple RAW to those taken using the Lightroom camera on the iPhone 13



## chrishowe (Nov 2, 2021)

When imported into Lightroom both images are shown as DNG format. I note that the auto adjust function makes the Apple image overexposed, and needs to be brought down 1 1/2 stops or so to look like the Lightroom camera image. Furthermore I don’t understand if they are both RAW images, why the Apple image smudges the detail in the background compared to the Lightroom camera image. I have noticed this before on Apple HEIC format photos on the iPhone, but why would it happen if they are both RAW? I know one is Apple RAW and the other is Lightroom/Adobe RAW but what is the difference particularly in detail shown?


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## Victoria Bampton (Nov 2, 2021)

Off the top of my head, is there a difference in the profile being applied?


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## chrishowe (Nov 2, 2021)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Off the top of my head, is there a difference in the profile being applied?


Both profiles say “Adobe Landscape”


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## Victoria Bampton (Nov 4, 2021)

Hmmmm. I've just shot two photos of my garden, one with the LR camera and one as an Apple ProRAW, set their settings exactly the same and I'm not seeing much of a difference. There is a slight difference in detail, but the Apple ProRAW is 35.23MB whereas LR's one is 17.98MB. That makes me think that Apple might be applying some magic to theirs and then outputting a linear DNG.... actually, yes! Looking at the DNG metadata in Lightroom Classic, only the Lightroom one is the mosaic data from the sensor, the Apple one is indeed linear (so partially processed by Apple).


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## chrishowe (Nov 4, 2021)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Hmmmm. I've just shot two photos of my garden, one with the LR camera and one as an Apple ProRAW, set their settings exactly the same and I'm not seeing much of a difference. There is a slight difference in detail, but the Apple ProRAW is 35.23MB whereas LR's one is 17.98MB. That makes me think that Apple might be applying some magic to theirs and then outputting a linear DNG.... actually, yes! Looking at the DNG metadata in Lightroom Classic, only the Lightroom one is the mosaic data from the sensor, the Apple one is indeed linear (so partially processed by Apple).


That’s interesting, thank you so much to the Queen for checking it out! Certainly when I take landscape shots for example where there is a conifer forest in the background, on the light room image I have detail in the conifer trees whereas the Apple one appears smudged but only when you zoom in of course.


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## Victoria Bampton (Nov 4, 2021)

I'm glad you mentioned it. Having seen the file sizes, I'll be using the Lightroom camera more!!!


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## chrishowe (Nov 5, 2021)

Victoria Bampton said:


> I'm glad you mentioned it. Having seen the file sizes, I'll be using the Lightroom camera more!!!


More experiments today revealed that the Apple raw has taken the noise out of the sky but one effect of that is losing the detail on fields and the tiny branches of trees in the distance. in fact the Apple sky is very clear indeed, whereas even putting a noise reduction of 50 on the Lightroom RAW pic still looks a bit Dottie at close inspection, but the Lightroom detail on tree branches is still far superior. Yes indeed keep using that Lightroom camera.


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