Handling RAW on iPad
At some point, I thought about the fact that since I probably have such a wonderful device as an iPad, it would be nice if I could do photo processing on the go using it. Indeed, you must admit that if you go on a trip for a while, it is much more convenient to carry a heavy camera with optics and a light tablet than a heavy camera with optics and a heavy laptop. But here's the bad luck - I'm shooting in RAW and would like to be able to process RAW on my tablet. At some point, I decided to get an indispensable device for dropping photos into the memory of the iPad and figure out what was happening in the world of photography on iOS.
Actually, after I inserted the memory card into the card reader and inserted the card reader into the iPad and saved the photos for the last one, one unpleasant thing turned out. iPhoto , which I installed a long time ago in order to try, showed only previews of photos with a noticeable icon of crossed out RAW. That is, the program could pull out the JPEG preview for me, which is stored in any RAW file, but it couldn’t allow the raw content of the file to be converted. What a pity.
But there must be third-party applications that could allow me to do this!
Through a short and not very complicated search, I came to two applications: Snapseed and Filterstorm. Looking ahead, I will say that they have the same problem. About what kind of problem this is, I will talk a little further. I didn’t like Filterstorm at all (it's a pity, because I spent a lot of money on this program), but what can we do, we learn from mistakes.
But I liked Snapseed with a very simple approach to photo processing and a nice interface, not overloaded with unnecessary sliders. If on a desktop computer with a large display I am friendly with Lightroom or Aperture interfaces, then on the iPad, nevertheless, I want something simpler than that provided by Snapseed.
But even here I ran into a wonderful problem, which, as it turned out, was inherent in the whole system (more precisely, its image libraries) as a whole. iOS understands and loads RAW files into its memory, but the algorithms for working with them are built in such a way that neither the system itself nor applications using standard libraries for accessing them can actually receive RAW, only a preview (I may be mistaken in the terminology, I am not very strong in the APIs used in iOS). What does this mean for a photographer who wants to process his images on a tablet or phone? The fact that he will not get access to raw data from a heavy file using applications that access the image library.
However, digging into the network a little more, a solution was found. There were applications that, using their own paths, gain access to the RAW files themselves, bypassing the image library and the notorious previews. They are not so presentable (among them PiRAWnha and PhotoRAW stand out ), but they do their job, allowing you to quickly and fairly accurately convert RAW to the desired settings in JPEG for further processing. Initially, I found only PhotoRAW, so I bought it and use it.
The interface, as I already noted, is not as attractive as that of iPhoto or Snapseed, but the program really does its job, allowing you to edit the most necessary image characteristics on the knee and quickly convert from all the resulting JPEG.
Thus, I developed for myself such a scheme for processing RAW files. After saving them to the device’s memory, I import them into PhotoRAW, convert them there to high-quality JPEG, and then go to Snapseed and apply the filters and artwork I need (of which there are many, but this is a different matter).
I hope that with this story I can help those people who are just thinking about processing photos from serious cameras on the go to avoid many of the pitfalls of the system.
Actually, after I inserted the memory card into the card reader and inserted the card reader into the iPad and saved the photos for the last one, one unpleasant thing turned out. iPhoto , which I installed a long time ago in order to try, showed only previews of photos with a noticeable icon of crossed out RAW. That is, the program could pull out the JPEG preview for me, which is stored in any RAW file, but it couldn’t allow the raw content of the file to be converted. What a pity.
But there must be third-party applications that could allow me to do this!
Through a short and not very complicated search, I came to two applications: Snapseed and Filterstorm. Looking ahead, I will say that they have the same problem. About what kind of problem this is, I will talk a little further. I didn’t like Filterstorm at all (it's a pity, because I spent a lot of money on this program), but what can we do, we learn from mistakes.
But I liked Snapseed with a very simple approach to photo processing and a nice interface, not overloaded with unnecessary sliders. If on a desktop computer with a large display I am friendly with Lightroom or Aperture interfaces, then on the iPad, nevertheless, I want something simpler than that provided by Snapseed.
But even here I ran into a wonderful problem, which, as it turned out, was inherent in the whole system (more precisely, its image libraries) as a whole. iOS understands and loads RAW files into its memory, but the algorithms for working with them are built in such a way that neither the system itself nor applications using standard libraries for accessing them can actually receive RAW, only a preview (I may be mistaken in the terminology, I am not very strong in the APIs used in iOS). What does this mean for a photographer who wants to process his images on a tablet or phone? The fact that he will not get access to raw data from a heavy file using applications that access the image library.
However, digging into the network a little more, a solution was found. There were applications that, using their own paths, gain access to the RAW files themselves, bypassing the image library and the notorious previews. They are not so presentable (among them PiRAWnha and PhotoRAW stand out ), but they do their job, allowing you to quickly and fairly accurately convert RAW to the desired settings in JPEG for further processing. Initially, I found only PhotoRAW, so I bought it and use it.
The interface, as I already noted, is not as attractive as that of iPhoto or Snapseed, but the program really does its job, allowing you to edit the most necessary image characteristics on the knee and quickly convert from all the resulting JPEG.
Thus, I developed for myself such a scheme for processing RAW files. After saving them to the device’s memory, I import them into PhotoRAW, convert them there to high-quality JPEG, and then go to Snapseed and apply the filters and artwork I need (of which there are many, but this is a different matter).
I hope that with this story I can help those people who are just thinking about processing photos from serious cameras on the go to avoid many of the pitfalls of the system.