Shooting in RAW

In this tutorial, we unlock the raw power of your iPhone’s camera by shooting in the RAW format.

Out of the box, Halide captures not one, but two images when you tap the shutter button. Like the camera app, Halide captures a regular photo. However, unlike the camera app, it also captures a second RAW image.

What does that mean? Simply put, the 'regular' image has a lot of creative decisions made for you in a split second. Contrast, color, brightness, detail — you name it—are set, and cannot be changed later. We capture it all with that second RAW shot, leaving the creative editing up to you.

(If you’d like to read more about how this works, check out our detailed blog post.)

RAW images hold a lot of information - detail that is typically lost in highlights and shadows is retained. More detail in colors is saved. And best yet, RAW images on iPhone are almost always sharper than their processed, JPG counterparts. The trade-off is that images can be grainier, especially when in low light or at night. 

To enable RAW… you actually don’t have to do anything. Every image you’ve captured with Halide has been a combined RAW and JPG file, however, if for whatever reason it was disabled, you can find the toggle for RAW in the Quick Bar.

Halide offers various capture options you can access in settings. By default, RAW+ will grab a ‘regular’ (JPG) image as well as a RAW image in the DNG format. Tapping the Quickbar RAW icon will only take a regular JPG image.

For more options, go to the Halide settings and tap ‘Capture’ where you can choose between RAW+, RAW, MAX and HEIC or JPG options. We explain those settings more as you choose them in the app. 

Have fun (continuing) to shoot RAW. Tomorrow, we’ll show you how you can push these images to their full potential with editing!