It’s there. Why not use it?
If you have an Adobe Lightroom license and an iPhone, you can take photos in the
RAW format DNG using Lightroom for iOS.
There are three main ways to launch Lightroom’s camera module:
- From the Desktop, press hard on the Lightroom icon using 3D support, and select Camera.
- From the Notification screen, swipe right and select Lightroom Camera.
- Inside Lightroom, click on the camera icon in the lower right.
Some of the advantages compared to Apple’s Photos (2019):
- Control of exposure. One can make a photo brighter or darker before the shot. This is a useful way to avoid blown highlights or a dark motive if the main motive is either much darker or much lighter than most of the frame.
- Control of ISO and shutter speed. They work together with the exposure.
- Control of focus. By drawing a slide, one can manually change the focus point from near to far. This is useful, if the main motive is too small for the phone to focus automatically. (Lightroom's UI is not great, though, and it is not trivial to use.)
- Easy access to Lightroom’s many edit options, which give more flexibility with the DNG format than Apple's Photos with HEIC or JPEG format.
Traps:
- Modifications made to DNG files are not visible to Apple’s Finder or Photos. Solution: export to JPEG and not to DNG format.
- No easy way to display zoomed in details of newly taken photos inside the camera module. There is only an overview. Solution: close the camera module and display the photo from the library.
- No HEIC format. Lightroom can take photos in DNG or JPEG format. If size is an issue, Apple’s camera creates smaller files in HEIC format.
- Shooting settings are not saved permanently. Solution: before each shot, check the settings to make sure the app has not reset them.
For most of us, Apple's default camera gives mostly adequate photos in most situations. However, if one wants to boast the quality a little, Adobe Lightroom provides a little extra push.
