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Turn on quick iPhone camera setting to instantly improve quality of your photos Credits: Social Media
By Ellissa Bain

Turn on quick iPhone camera setting to instantly improve quality of your photos

By Ellissa Bain

If you want to take better-quality pictures on your iPhone but don’t want to upgrade to a newer model just yet, this could be the answer.

There is a simple feature you can turn on in the settings that will instantly improve your image quality, but beware – it will take up a lot of storage.

Close up of woman's hand taking a photo of local city street view in Hong Kong with smartphone
Close up of woman’s hand taking a photo of local city street view in Hong Kong with smartphone. Credit: d3sign (Getty Images)

iPhone camera setting will improve quality

The setting is called Apple ProRAW, and it’s available for iPhone 12 Pro and later Pro models that are running iOS 14.3 or beyond. That means you can only get it if you have an iPhone 12 Pro, 13 Pro, 14 Pro, 15 Pro or 16 Pro.

Like JPEG and PNG, ProRAW is another type of file format that is designed to give you greater creative control when editing photos. It leaves the image unprocessed so you can edit the exposure, colour and white balance of your photo without losing the quality.

However, even if you’re not planning on editing a photo, the feature still improves the quality by allowing you to capture ProRAW images in two resolutions: 12 megapixels or 48 megapixels. You can only change the resolution if you have an iPhone 14 Pro or later.

Apple says 48MP will “retain more detail in your image file,” also letting you zoom in and giving more creative control when cropping. However, each image will take up at least 30 MB of storage, while a normal photo only takes up 3 to 5 MB.

How to turn on Apple ProRAW

  1. Open Settings
  2. Go to ‘Camera’
  3. Select ‘Formats’
  4. Go to ‘Photo Capture’
  5. Turn on ‘Apple ProRAW’

If you want to change the resolution, select ‘Pro Default’ and choose an option from the drop-down menu. Alternatively, you can choose your resolution directly in the Camera app by clicking and holding the resolution setting at the top of the screen.

@itricksman1

Enable ProRAW on your iPhone for clearer photos!😎#iphone #iphonetricks #apple #iphonetipsandtricks #techtok #iphonetips #foryou #ios18 #ios

♬ Savage – Megan Thee Stallion

How to take photos with Apple ProRaw

Once you’ve turned it on, open the camera, and you will see the word ‘RAW’ in capital letters in the top right-hand corner of the screen. Select the icon to take an image with ProRAW. Press it again to switch the feature off.

Pro models can capture images in a ProRAW format using any of its cameras, including both the front and back, and when using Smart HDR, Deep Fusion and Night mode features. You can edit ProRAW photos in any third-party app.

Here are some more things you had no idea you could do with your iPhone camera including a useful laundry hack.