Can you print large saleable landscape prints with an iPhone?

terse said:
It does depend on the intended use, in many cases. So if I'm thinking of printing a particular image on an A3 sheet that I want to hang on my wall or enter in the county fair competition, I'll start with a raw capture. If I'm snapping a photo of the latest jigsaw puzzle we finished to email to my sister, I'll just shoot a JPG with the native cam.

It's not just landscapes that can benefit from raw capture, though. I think those pottery studio shots of JillyG's are the kind of thing that can also benefit and moody cat shots as well. For example, in images that have a lot of sky or similar gradients of color (like a painted wall), working with a raw capture can help prevent banding in those areas because you have greater color depth to work with (until you convert to JPG, that is). It also helps with photos of egrets because of the extended dynamic range for capturing the bright white of the egret against a dark background. (I've also used HDR in that situation, but then there's the problem of ghosting if the egret moves a bit.)
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The problem for me is that of the 12000 shots I take (or took before lockdown!) in a short period I might want to print one. In the meantime I have hundreds of shots that need processing. I know that some apps will save both a DNG and JPEG version at the same time but from recollection FundyBrian mentioned some hitch with that not including space usage.

Secondly, you have to be dedicated to get the best out of raw and really learn new adjustment settings, not just the usual highlights, shadows etc. I struggled to improve the jpeg version with my limited knowledge. The difference between me and a truly good photographer - dedication.

Thirdly, when DNG first came on the scene, identifying DNG and JPG files in the camera roll was a real pain. As I haven’t done DNG for a while not sure that’s changed although EXIF apps will of course help.
 
ImageArt said:
The problem for me is that of the 12000 shots I take (or took before lockdown!) in a short period I might want to print one. In the meantime I have hundreds of shots that need processing. I know that some apps will save both a DNG and JPEG version at the same time but from recollection FundyBrian mentioned some hitch with that not including space usage.

Secondly, you have to be dedicated to get the best out of raw and really learn new adjustment settings, not just the usual highlights, shadows etc. I struggled to improve the jpeg version with my limited knowledge. The difference between me and a truly good photographer - dedication.

Thirdly, when DNG first came on the scene, identifying DNG and JPG files in the camera roll was a real pain. As I haven’t done DNG for a while not sure that’s changed although EXIF apps will of course help.
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I hear ya.
 
ImageArt said:
I know that some apps will save both a DNG and JPEG version at the same time but from recollection @FundyBrian mentioned some hitch with that not including space usage.
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Chromatica and some other camera apps will do that. The problem is that you can't get the proper exposure for both. If you use auto exposure or expose according to the readings on the screen, you get a well-exposed JPG but the raw is underexposed and doesn't get to use its extra headroom. If you expose properly for the raw capture, then the JPG will be overexposed.

ImageArt said:
Thirdly, when DNG first came on the scene, identifying DNG and JPG files in the camera roll was a real pain.
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Still the same, unfortunately. Some apps have image browsers that do identify DNGs, but the Camera Roll doesn't.
 
From a piece in Practical Science.

When you shouldn't shoot RAW with your phone
The best thing about your smartphone’s camera is how convenient it is. In moments, you can have your phone out, swipe, and shoot away, which allows you to capture moments you’d otherwise miss.
Smartphone cameras are also getting better by using computational photography. By default, iPhones that support iOS 12 now shoot high-dynamic range (HDR) photos, which combine multiple shots into a single composite image, giving them more depth and definition. Google, too, is spending a lot of time using machine learning to help the Pixel's camera, which some consider the best smartphone camera on the market.
Even if you know what you’re doing, the advantage of shooting RAW all the time is slipping. At the moment, in almost all situations, you can get a photo that is comparatively good for a fraction of the effort just by letting your smartphone camera make the decisions. But if you have the time and want to experiment with editing your photos, shooting RAW is also a great idea.

When to shoot RAW
 
terse said:
You are standing on the edge of a rabbit hole. You look down and see a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. Run away Y/N?

Some additions to what Uuglypher has said:

When you open a raw file in your chosen editor, it will look rather flat compared to a straight-out-of-camera JPEG. It'll take a little practice to learn to tune the raw file to produce something that looks as good as the standard JPEG. And then it will take a little more practice to learn to take advantage of the extra range the raw file can give you and potentially produce something better than the standard JPEG.

And along with the greater color depth and dynamic range that Uuglypher mentioned, a raw file leaves it up to you to decide how much sharpening and noise reduction to apply to the file. Some people feel that out-of-camera JPEGs are oversharpened (giving a crunchy look and sometimes showing artifacts). And some feel that the camera processing is too heavy-handed in applying noise reduction, causing the image to lose detail. In "developing" a raw image, you make those decisions about sharpening and noise reduction yourself, so you can suit them to the individual image and to your intent.

You also need to alter your exposure technique to get the most out of raw captures. As Uuglypher said, the preview on the screen that most (or maybe all) camera apps show you as you frame up your shot is based on a JPEG rendering. But the raw file has greater range on the highlight end than the JPEG rendering does, so if you adjust your exposure to avoid highlight clipping based on what you see on the screen, you're not taking advantage of that extra range. (And if you do adjust your exposure for the raw file's extra range, then the JPEG that gets saved along with the raw will be overexposed.)

There's a $15 ebook titled Ultimate iPhone DNG that goes into much more detail about how to get the most out of raw shooting on an iPhone. It's three years old now, but I think everything still applies. (If you do a search in MT on the title, you'll find some comments from FundyBrian on it.)

Continue down rabbit hole Y/N?
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Wow! I had a look at Nichols’ book “Ultimate Izphone DNG” and, after getting past the woefully out-dated accounts of his favorite third party raw camera apps I found an incredibly well presented disquisition on several raw capture exposure techniques with UniWB, particularly, covered exceptionally well. And his dissection of the rationalles of the LR/ Adobe camera raw pp tools is incredibly insightful, practical, and often wittily presented. That was the most effectively directed $15 I’ve spent on a ANY photog book - much less on a partly out-dated one - in several decades.
I’m beholden to whomever it was that mentioned and called my attention to it!
By the bye( I haven’t forgotten “the rest of the story related to raw exposure using the full complement of DR that hides off to the right of the Jpeg histogram frame, but Apple and I are sorting out some profound disagreement that my iPads, iPhone, MacBook Air, and iCloud are having about “syncing and mirroring” my voluminous “stuff”. I shall finish my promised disquisition as soon as that is sorted out - it is hoped sooner than later!
In the meantime, do give a serious look at the Nichols book!
Dave
 
Uuglypher said:
Wow! I had a look at Nichols’ book “Ultimate Izphone DNG” and, after getting past the woefully out-dated accounts of his favorite third party raw camera apps I found an incredibly well presented disquisition on several raw capture exposure techniques with UniWB, particularly, covered exceptionally well. And his dissection of the rationalles of the LR/ Adobe camera raw pp tools is incredibly insightful, practical, and often wittily presented. That was the most effectively directed $15 I’ve spent on a ANY photog book - much less on a partly out-dated one - in several decades.
I’m beholden to whomever it was that mentioned and called my attention to it!
By the bye( I haven’t forgotten “the rest of the story related to raw exposure using the full complement of DR that hides off to the right of the Jpeg histogram frame, but Apple and I are sorting out some profound disagreement that my iPads, iPhone, MacBook Air, and iCloud are having about “syncing and mirroring” my voluminous “stuff”. I shall finish my promised disquisition as soon as that is sorted out - it is hoped sooner than later!
In the meantime, do give a serious look at the Nichols book!
Dave
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Does anyone know if the book “IPhone Photography for Dummies” by Hemmings covers any aspects of raw capture?
Thanks,
Dave
 
Uuglypher said:
Does anyone know if the book “IPhone Photography for Dummies” by Hemmings covers any aspects of raw capture?
Thanks,
Dave
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I don't have the book, but I took a look at the table of contents on Amazon. There's no mention of raw capture in the chapter titles or subheads and nothing that seemed (to me) to indicate it's covered in more than passing.

It's a shame that Nichols hasn't followed up Ultimate iPhone DNG with the other books he planned.
 
terse said:
I don't have the book, but I took a look at the table of contents on Amazon. There's no mention of raw capture in the chapter titles or subheads and nothing that seemed (to me) to indicate it's covered in more than passing.

It's a shame that Nichols hasn't followed up Ultimate iPhone DNG with the other books he planned.
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Thanks,terse,
Agreed...re: lack of other books!
Dave
 
terse said:
I don't have the book, but I took a look at the table of contents on Amazon. There's no mention of raw capture in the chapter titles or subheads and nothing that seemed (to me) to indicate it's covered in more than passing.

It's a shame that Nichols hasn't followed up Ultimate iPhone DNG with the other books he planned.
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I bought the DNG book but it’s a bit wasted in my hands. I loved Brad’s photography but he seems to have stopped posting at the end of 2018. Check out his blog https://braddlesphotoblurb.blogspot.com/ . I too would have like to see more from him.

I was also hoping that Jack Hollingsworth would produce a good online course. He has been threatening to produce a course for um, let me see, must be about 4 years now! These posts prompted me to have a look to see if he has moved any closer. Ah yes, posted in April 2019 with a summary of it’s contents. Still coming soon :lol:. I suspect from the contents that it will be directed at beginners like his book. No mention of RAW so can’t see myself forking out $197 for this ‘Masterclass’. I think Brad’s photography much better anyway.
 
ImageArt said:
I bought the DNG book but it’s a bit wasted in my hands. I loved Brad’s photography but he seems to have stopped posting at the end of 2018. Check out his blog https://braddlesphotoblurb.blogspot.com/ . I too would have like to see more from him.

I was also hoping that Jack Hollingsworth would produce a good online course. He has been threatening to produce a course for um, let me see, must be about 4 years now! These posts prompted me to have a look to see if he has moved any closer. Ah yes, posted in April 2019 with a summary of it’s contents. Still coming soon :lol:. I suspect from the contents that it will be directed at beginners like his book. No mention of RAW so can’t see myself forking out $197 for this ‘Masterclass’. I think Brad’s photography much better anyway.
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Interesting blog, never heard of the guy!! His IG account seems to end in 2018 too.
Just found a 2nd account but even this seems to end at the tail end of 2019.
www.instagram.com

iPhoneraw01 (@zerooneimaging) • Instagram photos and videos

118 Followers, 109 Following, 117 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from iPhoneraw01 (@zerooneimaging)
www.instagram.com www.instagram.com
 
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terse said:
One mobile photographer whose work consistently impresses me is Joseph Cyr (allophile_ on Instagram). He's in the US southwest, so he's got great scenery to work with, but also his technique is superb. I'd love to know how he gets there.
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Yes, great photos. I did a bit of digging. The Mobiography Magazine did a piece on him in 2018 so couldn’t resist buying that issue. He didn’t give a lot away. Fascinating to me is that most of the good iPhone photographers don’t go any further than using Snapseed even for conversion to BW. He uses this and likes the Tintype app too for BW. He unfortunately doesn’t mention any particularly camera app. He gives online courses to youngers at a college. Wonder if they will take me... :lol:

A piece was also done in this issue on Nicholas Xanthos (@_nx_). He uses Pureshot and with a few selected combos that he has made up, Hipstamatic. He again uses Snapseed a lot even for filters but also mentions VSCO, RNI Films and Pixlromatic for tones and Mextures, Stackables, Distressed FX, Photocopier and Phototoaster for textures. This was 2 years ago though. I do prefer his more filtered photos.

I often look at the Mobiography site and issue contents to get ideas on good photographers, apps and hardware. The December issue mentions the Mylio app to organise your photos. It’s free and looks intriguing.
 
ImageArt said:
Yes, great photos. I did a bit of digging. The Mobiography Magazine did a piece on him in 2018 so couldn’t resist buying that issue. He didn’t give a lot away. Fascinating to me is that most of the good iPhone photographers don’t go any further than using Snapseed even for conversion to BW. He uses this and likes the Tintype app too for BW. He unfortunately doesn’t mention any particularly camera app. He gives online courses to youngers at a college. Wonder if they will take me... :lol:

A piece was also done in this issue on Nicholas Xanthos (@_nx_). He uses Pureshot and with a few selected combos that he has made up, Hipstamatic. He again uses Snapseed a lot even for filters but also mentions VSCO, RNI Films and Pixlromatic for tones and Mextures, Stackables, Distressed FX, Photocopier and Phototoaster for textures. This was 2 years ago though. I do prefer his more filtered photos.

I often look at the Mobiography site and issue contents to get ideas on good photographers, apps and hardware. The December issue mentions the Mylio app to organise your photos. It’s free and looks intriguing.
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Not wanting to sound stupid, but why do you need a app to organise your photos?
 
sinnerjohn said:
Not wanting to sound stupid, but why do you need a app to organise your photos?
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My biggest bugbear with the iPhone is that the generic Photos app only has virtual folders. All the photos are actually stored in the Camera Roll. You can’t actually move them to a physical folder within the app so on my iPhone 7+, I had 18,000 images in one folder :confused:. Secondly, you can’t see the name and exif of the image without using another app and you can’t change the name of an image. They have a numeric numbering system. It starts renumbering the images img0001 once it hits img9999 which caused all sorts of backup problems until the app developers cYou also cannot tag photos with the app although it’s quite clever at allowing you to search items like ‘bird’ for example. The iPhone recently introduced a Folder system which is making moving and saving docs and images much easier but it’s not quite there yet.

But you must have experienced this on your mini?

I’m not sure Mylio is going to add much extra but it will be interesting to give it a go.
 
ImageArt said:
My biggest bugbear with the iPhone is that the generic Photos app only has virtual folders. All the photos are actually stored in the Camera Roll. You can’t actually move them to a physical folder within the app so on my iPhone 7+, I had 18,000 images in one folder :confused:. Secondly, you can’t see the name and exif of the image without using another app and you can’t change the name of an image. They have a numeric numbering system. It starts renumbering the images img0001 once it hits img9999 which caused all sorts of backup problems until the app developers cYou also cannot tag photos with the app although it’s quite clever at allowing you to search items like ‘bird’ for example. The iPhone recently introduced a Folder system which is making moving and saving docs and images much easier but it’s not quite there yet.

But you must have experienced this on your mini?

I’m not sure Mylio is going to add much extra but it will be interesting to give it a go.
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Pah Apple :rolleyes: I rarely use the mini anymore but even at the height of my mini madness I hardly ever stored many photos on there.
As I never took photos with it (terrible camera) I guess I only transferred ones over to it (a palaver in itself) that I wanted to edit. Its also the smallest space one made, more like 8 rather than 18,000 :lol:

Of course over at Android we have Google photos that seamlessly whisks our images off to store on the web (at original size if you are a lucky Pixel owner) Once there you can create albums to your hearts content. ;)

Of course even iPhone users are allowed to use Google photos I believe, if you don't mind getting your hands dirty :lmao:
 
ImageArt said:
My biggest bugbear with the iPhone is that the generic Photos app only has virtual folders. All the photos are actually stored in the Camera Roll. You can’t actually move them to a physical folder within the app so on my iPhone 7+, I had 18,000 images in one folder :confused:.
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My pet peeve too!!! I’ve got 21,000+ images in my camera roll. :barf:
 
ImageArt said:
My biggest bugbear with the iPhone is that the generic Photos app only has virtual folders. All the photos are actually stored in the Camera Roll. You can’t actually move them to a physical folder within the app so on my iPhone 7+, I had 18,000 images in one folder :confused:. Secondly, you can’t see the name and exif of the image without using another app and you can’t change the name of an image. They have a numeric numbering system. It starts renumbering the images img0001 once it hits img9999 which caused all sorts of backup problems until the app developers cYou also cannot tag photos with the app although it’s quite clever at allowing you to search items like ‘bird’ for example. The iPhone recently introduced a Folder system which is making moving and saving docs and images much easier but it’s not quite there yet.

But you must have experienced this on your mini?

I’m not sure Mylio is going to add much extra but it will be interesting to give it a go.
Click to expand...

RoseCat said:
My pet peeve too!!! I’ve got 21,000+ images in my camera roll. :barf:
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And I thought I was out of control with 10,000! :(
 
sinnerjohn said:
Of course over at Android we have Google photos that seamlessly whisks our images off to store on the web (at original size if you are a lucky Pixel owner) Once there you can create albums to your hearts content. ;)

Of course even iPhone users are allowed to use Google photos I believe, if you don't mind getting your hands dirty :lmao:
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Apple has iCloud Photos, though I don't know if it has real folders or only virtual ones like the Photos app. But I've never used it -- I'd rather keep my stuff locally rather than be up and downloading from the cloud, so Google Photos wouldn't do me any good either. Maybe it's just a hangover from the olden days, but I've always had better luck taking care of digital stuff myself rather than trusting it to some distant other.

As all the others have said, the biggest problem with the iOS Photos app is that it doesn't have real folders that you can actually move images to, just virtual folders. It'd be nice if it had smart folders also, and more sorting options, but real folders are the main problem.

iOS now includes the Files app, which handles more than images and does have real folders (and allows renaming images). Some photo apps can now use Files as well as the Photos app/Camera Roll, so maybe we'll get to a better solution eventually.
 
terse said:
Apple has iCloud Photos, though I don't know if it has real folders or only virtual ones like the Photos app. But I've never used it -- I'd rather keep my stuff locally rather than be up and downloading from the cloud, so Google Photos wouldn't do me any good either. Maybe it's just a hangover from the olden days, but I've always had better luck taking care of digital stuff myself rather than trusting it to some distant other.

As all the others have said, the biggest problem with the iOS Photos app is that it doesn't have real folders that you can actually move images to, just virtual folders. It'd be nice if it had smart folders also, and more sorting options, but real folders are the main problem.

iOS now includes the Files app, which handles more than images and does have real folders (and allows renaming images). Some photo apps can now use Files as well as the Photos app/Camera Roll, so maybe we'll get to a better solution eventually.
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Wholeheartedly agree. I totally control my own photos. I not only feel assured that they won’t get lost, it saves me a subscription fee!

I think the Files app will eventually be adequate. I certainly use it extensively now for downloading all sorts of documents from the internet/emails although the Documents App is my main repository on iOS. I like the way I can open a share to my PC and can see all the folders and files and backup as necessary.
 
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