Apple’s iPhone 12 Pro promises some serious photography capabilities on both its predecessor and the standard iPhone. And that’s the beginning of the Apple Pal program with improvements.
This new imaging format is designed to tap into an upgraded triple rear camera array on both the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max, which also has a leader sensor to collect more image information.
The smartphone is capable of shooting in RAW format for a while, but this custom Apple Pull format could launch a new way of shooting photos rich in data while Apple also taps on the powerful image processing of the Pull. Here’s what you need to know about Apple Pal Prova.
What is Prora?
When you snap a RAW photo on either a smartphone or a DSLR, it captures a completely uncompressed image. These files are usually much larger than the standard JPEG photos captured by many DSLRs and phones by default.
These uncompressed images are very large in file size. Thanks for getting a lot more image data, which means there is a lot more scope to edit them after you shoot them. Professional photographers tend to shoot in RAW format so that they can manipulate photos using photo editing software like Photoshop and then process the images that are suitable for viewing in digital or physical format.
However, shooting in RAW means that not all computational photography smartphones apply to camera shots on a captured image. This means that in order to get advanced features like HDR photo processing, you need to shoot in a processed image format, such as, JPEG, and therefore lose the ability to manipulate images deeply in the editing software software.
Basically, RAW or JPEG formats require some sort of compromise in editing facility or depth. But Apple’s Pro Pro format aims to eliminate those compromises.
Progra, in short, will get RAW images but will apply some image processing on top. This includes merging frames from many of the shots captured by the camera on the iPhone 12 Pro, using Paul’s Deep Fusion and Smart HDR tech, or using noise reduction. But it will leave a little space for things like color, exposure and the same with in-depth contrast that can be had with the RAW format.
Think of it this way: Creating a ready-made image from RAW is like cooking a meal from scratch, in which all the ingredients are prep. JPEG images on the other hand are cooked meals. So using this analogy, Prora is like cooking a meal, only you have all the ingredients that are measured and ready to use. Effectively, Prora people provide base processing on an image to edit final photographs more easily.
What are the benefits of Prora?
You can think of Prora as an aid to your photo editing. Using Smart HDR3 to sort things out like White Balance and pick up details and textures in RAW shots, people provide a better basic image to make it better with editing.
Doing so avoids the sometimes daunting process of editing RAW photos from scratch, which is probably why Apple hasn’t given RAW shooting on its iPhone yet. Without any processing, RAW images will look a bit flat and frustrating and tweaking their satisfaction for inexperienced people with photo manipulation can be a challenge.
So Prora will take care of the difficult parts of shaping the image for a more refined editing, and leave a more beautiful and artistic tweak for manual editing. Calling it Prora can be a misnomer because it is a tool for people who do not overuse or manipulate RAW images.
That being said, professional photographers or experienced photography enthusiasts who are shooting on an iPhone 12 Pro instead of a DSLR can significantly accelerate the time it takes to create a finished photograph from RAW.
What is the future of Progra Photography?
Smartphone photography has improved so much that even mid-range phones can get impressive photographs. But they still can’t compete with DSLR cameras in terms of loyalty and quality of photographs. And Prora won’t change that.
But it can be seen as a neat evolution of smartphone photography, providing people with the tools to manipulate image but also being supported by powerful computing photography.
We have yet to try out the iPhone 12 Pro with Prora, but it is definitely an interesting feature that we will be eager to test. And if that better smartphone proves to be a stronger tool for getting my shots, we can expect other smartphone manufacturers like Samsung, Sony and OnePlus to make their own decision on the Pro.
With Prora, the iPhone 12 smartphone can enhance the photography bar. This means that the next phone like the Samsung Galaxy S21 will really need their camera camera game in 2021.
