Developing the photo on your phone and computer
In lesson 9 you saw why to shoot RAW. Here you see what to do with it, using the controls you already have: those of Photos on iPhone, Google Photos on Android and Lightroom, on Mac and PC but also on your phone. They are the same fifteen sliders under different names: pick your app and the page speaks its language.
1Simulator
Develop the photo
The photo is a RAW file just opened: flat, a little dark, tilted by two degrees and with high-ISO grain. Move the sliders and watch the photo and the histogram; under each slider it says what it acts on. The button under the histogram shows the original for as long as you hold it: that is the comparison that counts. The square is AI-generated, made for this lesson.
Key points
- Look at the histogram, not the screen: a phone screen is almost always too bright and misleads you.
- Highlights and Shadows recover what is there; Black Point and Contrast set the character. The first ones first, then the others.
- Set Warmth on something white or grey in the photo, never on the sky or on skin.
- Sharpness, Definition and Noise Reduction are judged at 100%: at full screen they always look like too little, and you overdo them.
- A RAW file forgives two or three stops of error, a JPEG almost nothing: it is lesson 9 seen from the other side.
Quick check
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