Hello, my name is Kirill. I’m a developer and a nerdy photographer. I always loved shooting on the go, and phones — especially the iPhone — were my favorite way to do photography. But after the iPhone XS I started noticing strange changes in iPhone image processing: more and more “artificial improvements” were applied, and photos started to look more fake and less natural.
I asked many people if I was going crazy (which is possible, of course), and they confirmed the theory. You can see the same complaint on Reddit, here and there. To fix it — to capture the world as I see it, not as Deep Fusion imagines it — I bought a Lumix DMC-LF1. A wonderful camera: small, portable, and most importantly it gave me incredible RAW files to work with.
With it I could shoot and get that “signature look” and depth in my images.
Time to upgrade?
After some time I got curious what I could upgrade to. The Lumix DMC-LX15 looked like a great option, so I bought it, and I was disappointed. Yes, the quality improved a lot, but compared to the LF1 it’s so heavy and bulky.
Then I wanted to compare it with my iPhone 15 Pro camera and understand if it even makes sense to carry the LX15 instead of using the iPhone. I took a few RAW photos and edited them on my PC, and the results shocked me — mostly because I had just spent $500 on a dust collector.
Moment of realization
That made me think: is it possible to edit photos like on a PC, without copying files, and without even turning on a laptop or a computer?
There aren’t many free apps for this: Snapseed, Lightroom, Photomator. In the end only one, Lightroom, can open and process Apple RAW files — not perfectly in every case, but honestly it does a very good job.
But Lightroom is built for many different tasks, so it’s hard to support and give deep control for a less popular format. As a developer, I started asking:
What is the best way to work with Apple RAW on the go?
And I discovered that Apple actually built the necessary capabilities. So why does nobody use them?
Why does Apple RAW look “dead”, and only sometimes appear on YouTube?
I have a few ideas. First, the embedded JPEG previews you see in the gallery don’t look much better than normal JPEGs.
Most users don’t notice the difference and don’t see a reason to spend storage on RAW — even though the file has a lot of data to work with.
Second, the whole workflow — shooting, processing, editing — is not for everyone, especially if it involves a PC.
Hypothesis testing
So why not create an app that can do it fully on-device, with maximum control and strong support for Apple RAW? I quickly built a prototype and I was surprised how good iPhone camera photos can be without over-sharpening, without edge contrast, with good exposure and color balance — if you just pull those values back from the embedded ones.
Humans can develop and process photos better than Deep Fusion. That’s a fact.
The difference is obvious when you compare the embedded JPEG from an Apple ProRAW file with a JPEG exported from RAW Clinic after pulling back the baked-in post-processing.
Why use the Apple Camera instead of a custom one?
Apple still leads when it comes to capturing consistently great photos — especially in low light or when your hands aren’t perfectly steady. The recommended workflow is simple: shoot in RAW with the Apple Camera, import the photo into RAW Clinic, and start editing.
And you’re never locked in — RAW Clinic supports RAW files from any camera Apple can decode, so you can capture photos however you prefer.
Professional RAW editing on your iPhone
I’ve just updated the app to the latest version. It’s no longer a prototype. It’s a finished product that I use every time I need to edit RAW photos on my iPhone. It supports not only Apple ProRAW, but also RAW images from cameras Apple supports on device.
If you made it this far, you’re probably also interested in Apple RAW photography — and I’d honestly love to hear your feedback. The app is free and available for iPhone and iPad.