Now that we’ve shot RAW, what do we do with it? At first glance, some RAW files might not look particularly impressive. They often look worse than your JPG file.
Process Zero files will be processed instantly by Halide, and have a nice film-like look. Still, maybe they came out a bit darker or lighter than you saw them. That’s normal — your iPhone viewfinder actually uses a lot of processing that Process Zero doesn’t.
You can easily adjust your exposure after the shot with Image Lab. Tap your last taken photo to enter Halide’s library view, then find your shot and tap the +/- icon in the bottom toolbar.
Adjust brightness to your desire, and then Apply the edits. This is no simple brightness slider: Halide captured raw data, so it can reapply Process Zero. Many details in the bright or dark areas can usually be recovered!
---
That’s a solid start — but you might want to do more creative editing. For that, we recommend an app like Darkroom, RAW Power, Photomator, Capture One or Adobe Lightroom.
Once you open a RAW file, you can edit with tremendous freedom. Try adjusting white balance, for instance — you can completely change a scene and its colors and mood thanks to all the extra information in the file:
With a little bit of editing, they can truly become something spectacular. Just note that come can start out looking a bit drab — that’s just because they are like a blank canvas waiting for you to tweak them. We recommend starting off with adjusting exposure, then white balance, pushing down highlights a bit and raising shadows!
Have fun exploring how far you can push your RAW files. You’d be surprised what you can get out of these images!
In our next tutorial, we'll look at how to nail level shots.