Adobe Photoshop for iPad Gaining Support for RAW Images

One of those stories where my response is, "You mean it didn't already support RAW?"

You can tell that all of the current commenters here are not photographers.

RAW is a particular way of shooting that captures "raw" data from the sensor of your camera. This means that there are _tons_ of "formats"... they are essentially different for every camera maker (and sometimes between cameras).

RAW files are _not_ "images". They are _data_. To make an image you have to "develop" the RAW into an image. Traditionally, this has been done using a RAW workflow that first included an app like Adobe RAW to do the original "developing" of the RAW... then you would go to Photoshop to touch-up / add to the photo. It's only been relatively recently that Photoshop on PCs allowed direct importing of RAW files.

Personally, I use Adobe Lightroom for importing all of my RAW files and developing them. It has an iPad version (I won't get into how the new Adobe Lightroom is different from "Classic" - it's somewhat like the debate about FCPX vs FCP) that has worked awesome for _years_ for developing RAW files... and you can open what you develop in Photoshop.

So: there hasn't been a problem with having a RAW workflow on the iPad for a while now. All this is doing is making it so that if you want to go directly to Photoshop with a RAW you can.

Now...

I still don't understand where things are headed with the M1 chip in terms of software compatibility. Why are there still "for iPad" versions of ANY apps at this point? Isn't this a dead end for developers? They should be just developing universal apps shouldn't they? One upload into the App Store for iOS and MacOS M1 apps. What am I missing?

I suspect that Photoshop on the iPad is getting this capability precisely _because_ of the M1 macs. They added it to photoshop on the M1 macs - so it made it easy to add to their iPad app. This same thing has been happening to Lightroom and Photoshop since the M1 macs debuted... the iPad versions continue to gain parity with the Mac versions.

As another poster pointed out: the iPad UI is very different... so there will always be pieces that are iPad only.

One of those stories where my response is, "You mean it didn't already support RAW?"

If you are serious about photography then you already have a RAW workflow - even on the iPad. Photoshop is generally not the first place to start with a RAW file.

The interface of an iPad app has to be different than a Mac, to be designed around touch. That said, we’ll certainly get to a point where there is a lot more fluidity between more desktop and mobile apps.

Yep.

Exactly! What exactly were people doing with an app named "Photo" shop then? Drawing pictures?

Also how do you edit large files on an iPad with tiny storage? Can you attach a USB hard drive, or does that only work on the iPad Pro that happens to have a USB port?

Working on _photos_... which are "developed" from RAW data files in another app (like Lightroom).

wow lmao this whole time it didn't support it?

Marketing ipadOS as some kind of "productivity" platform that can "replace your computeR" is a huge joke

Ridiculous. I've been using an iPad as one of my main photography productivity devices for about 5 years now (since Lightroom came out for iPad). It's actually an awesome platform for photography. Adobe's apps are fast and have a great iPad UI.

I still don't understand where things are headed with the M1 chip in terms of software compatibility. Why are there still "for iPad" versions of ANY apps at this point? Isn't this a dead end for developers? They should be just developing universal apps shouldn't they? One upload into the App Store for iOS and MacOS M1 apps. What am I missing?

The interface of an iPad app has to be different than a Mac, to be designed around touch. That said, we’ll certainly get to a point where there is a lot more fluidity between more desktop and mobile apps.

Still can't hold a candlestick to Affinity Photo on the iPad. They are still missing key features from the raw processor including Curves.

One of those stories where my response is, "You mean it didn't already support RAW?"

Exactly! What exactly were people doing with an app named "Photo" shop then? Drawing pictures?

Also how do you edit large files on an iPad with tiny storage? Can you attach a USB hard drive, or does that only work on the iPad Pro that happens to have a USB port?

iOS has no real usable file/folder hierarchy.

Of course it does. What are you referring to?