Raw Captures with Smartphone

Facebooktwitterlinkedin

Today’s Question: Thanks for the discussion about capturing raw images with Lightroom on a smartphone. Not having practiced a great deal with Lightroom on my iPhone, I find it difficult to locate the place to set the camera for raw capture. Could you give us a tutorial?

Tim’s Quick Answer: You can switch between DNG and JPEG capture with the Lightroom mobile app by tapping the file format option opposite the shutter release button and choosing between “DNG” and “JPG” in the popup that appears.

More Detail: As noted in an earlier Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter, the Lightroom mobile app enables you to capture photos in raw mode (creating Adobe DNG files) or in JPEG mode.

First, you’ll need to tap the camera icon at the bottom-right of the Lightroom mobile interface to switch to the camera. You will then see an indication of the current capture mode opposite the shutter release button. If you are holding your smartphone vertically, that means the capture mode option is at the top-center of the screen. If you are holding the smartphone horizontally the capture mode indication will appear at the left-center or right-center, depending on which way you have oriented the smartphone.

You can tap on the current setting (showing DNG or JPG) to bring up a popup that enables you to switch capture modes. The setting is a “switch” meaning you can tap at the center of the popup to switch between the DNG or JPG option. The display on within the camera feature will update in real time to indicate which mode the camera is currently set to.