DNG vs. DNG ?

[Redcrown]

I'm not a phone guy. I just use an old simple one, and wouldn't dream of using it for photos. But my wife just got a new phone from Samsung. I was interested to see that it shoots raw in DNG format. So I made a few test shots and loaded the DNGs in ACR. But I was then surprised that the new Denoise won't work. Grayed out, and "Not supported in this format." Bummer. For a minute I thought I might buy one if I could use the Full Monty on it.

So, what's the deal? Apparently not all DNGs are created equal. Are there any phones that shoot real raw?

[Jonathan Cross]

A RAW image taken on my iPhone 12 pro does not have denoise available in Lightroom Classic running on my M1 Mac.  Super resolution is available.  I took a RAW image at dusk on a trip last Autumn, used super resolution and printed at 18" x 12" at 300 pixels per inch.  I did some manual noise reduction after super resolution and that was vey successful.  Nobody to whom I have shown the print can believe it started as a !2MP iPhone image.

Jonathan

 

[fdisilvestro]

DNG is a container, so they are not created equally.

Are you using "Expert Raw" in the Samsung? Those are linear raws, or demosaiced partially processed files, where you can still change color temperature & color space encoding in post, but they are not unprocessed & undemosaiced raw files as Lightroon or ACR denoise expect. The same thing happens with Apple Pro raw files.

There might be other apps that can take unprocessed raws. For instance, at least in the Apple environment, the Lightroom App camera can take unprocessed DNGs.

In any case, those "Expert raws" are the result of computational photography in the phone, where multiple files might have been used, so you might not need to further use a tool as the ACR Denoise.

[fdisilvestro]

A RAW image taken on my iPhone 12 pro does not have denoise available in Lightroom Classic running on my M1 Mac.  Super resolution is available.  I took a RAW image at dusk on a trip last Autumn, used super resolution and printed at 18" x 12" at 300 pixels per inch.  I did some manual noise reduction after super resolution and that was vey successful.  Nobody to whom I have shown the print can believe it started as a !2MP iPhone image.

Jonathan

Are you using Apple Pro Raw? maybe that's why. They are not unprocessed raw. Try the LR Camera and it will take raw DNGs that can use LR Denoise, but they don't get the benefit of the computational photography in the Iphone

[Rhossydd]

Are there any phones that shoot real raw?

No problems here with DNGs in LR from my Google Pixel 6a. Surprisingly good images.

My experience with Samsung isn't great. Their phones are often loaded with bloatware and won't let you do things the way you want. I'd guess they're using their own implementation of raw that's not to the correct standard.

[Jonathan Cross]

Are you using Apple Pro Raw? maybe that's why. They are not unprocessed raw. Try the LR Camera and it will take raw DNGs that can use LR Denoise, but they don't get the benefit of the computational photography in the Iphone

Thanks for the suggestion, but I will stick as I am.  I am using Apple Pro RAW, i.e. just specifying RAW on the phone.  I do not have LR on my phone as I like to use it on my Apple M1 desktop with the much, much, larger screen, keyboard and mouse.  I am happy using super resolution if I want to print 18" x 12"  on 19" x 13" paper (having cropped from 4x3 to 3x2) and manual noise reduction if appropriate.

Jonathan

[johnstra]

I am pretty sure that denoise cannot work with any dng. I could be wrong, but I think that this is a restriction at this time.

[digitaldog]

I am pretty sure that denoise cannot work with any dng. I could be wrong, but I think that this is a restriction at this time.

Depending on the flavor of DNG, sure it can.

[fdisilvestro]

I am pretty sure that denoise cannot work with any dng. I could be wrong, but I think that this is a restriction at this time.

Denoise can work with Out of camera DNGs or DNGs created by DNG converter, provided you did not choose "Linear" in the preferences.

Denoise cannot work with files such as Apple Pro Raw, Exper raw, DNGs exported out of Dx0 (PureRaw / Photolab) or Topaz PhotoAi, as these have been already demosaiced.

[MauriceRR]

Noise reduction in Cameraraw is an AI features that process undemosaiced raw files to an excellent demosaiced raw image, stored as a linear image in a DNG container. This AI features are generally trained on raw files, especially for read noise, so the model has to be trained on images from the sensor itself.
DNG from phones as Google or iPhone are linear images already have the denoising/demosaicing applied, as well as a few other ones (bracketing, fusion, etc).
iPhones DNG work well with Adobe tools now, their tonemapping process is also baked into cameraraw/Lightroom.
Sometimes some application allows you to shoot in raw on some Android devices, but generally these images are 10 bits raw files, generally quite noisy and with limited dynamic range.