How to: export full quality JPGs from Apple iPhone ProRAW using just Photos on the phone

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Apple's ProRAW system on the iPhone 12 Pro series (onwards) is rather interesting, in that you get all the Apple 'smarts' but without the populist edge enhancement and sharpening that goes into Camera's default JPG output. But, a lot of the time, you may not see the full benefit. Yes, you can fiddle around with the ProRAW DNG files in Photos or indeed any other compatible photo editor and have a lot of fun, but what happens when you want to share around a full quality JPG with the world?

For example, on the phone itself, emailing an image to someone or sharing it via iMessage or via a social media app? Happily, iOS is clever enough to convert the ProRAW DNG file 'on the fly', so you never need to worry about this.

But, and here's the (really interesting) rub: what if you want a standard JPG on your MAC? Either for space reasons or because you want the desktop file to be as compatible with other apps as possible. 

In my case it has been to directly compare JPG files from the iPhone with those from other smartphone cameras, but perhaps you have your own niche use case? In any case, I wanted to document the simple hack that works every time.

If you simply AirDrop a ProRAW photo to a Mac, it arrives as a DNG file, as you'd expect. HOWEVER, it turns out that the simple act of making a change, however tiny, to the photo toggles something in iOS and sharing via AirDrop then shares a JPG. I've been using this technique for a couple of years now and haven't seen anyone else write about it...

What sort of change? Well, you obviously want something trivial that you wouldn't notice. In Photos 'edit' mode, I usually go into the 'Saturation' slider and turn this up or down by 1%. A completely invisible change to the eye but enough to toggle AirDrop JPG sharing.

I do hope this helps someone else - I use it many times a week with 100% success, being a fan of ProRAW but rarely wanting the hassle of DNG 'raw' image files.

PS. If you like this feature and want to support my work then please do so here via PayPal. Thanks.

Comments

dm29 said…
Very useful. Thank you. Shouldn’t this work for email sharing too? I think I read something about in Apple’s website.
7:31 PM
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