Editing Raw Photos on your Android Phone (Tutorial)

in OCD5 years ago

Well, I'll tell you, my computer broke down, couldn't have picked a worse time to do it. In this quarantine I honestly had a hard time finding a productivity center and the fact that the first days of the quarantine my laptop was damaged made everything worse animically. I have a lot of videos to edit and a lot of pictures, although I haven't done much I can't say that I can stop doing, some little thing I am writing, recording or thinking in the long term.

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The fact is that photo editing is very important to me, and I enjoy it very much. Shortly before the quarantine I managed to update my cell phone with a larger Storage Memory and RAM so a few days ago I thought about seeing if it was possible to edit RAW photos on my Android and the answer is YES.

The first thing to do in KNOW the difference between RAW and DNG formats.

RAW

The raw format as its name indicates is a "raw" of the image, this is the name given to all photographs taken directly from DSLR cameras, however, each brand of camera has a different RAW extension, for example Canon is CR2, Nikon is NEF basically because the technology of each sensor is different so it ends up being a different RAW processing in each case.

For what said before always generates a little doubt transforming our RAW format to any other thinking that our file will lose quality in a compression process.

DNG

Well, the DNG format is created by ADOBE precisely to take away that fear, giving us a format that can be opened in a wide variety of programs and that still preserves the RAW quality without any kind of compression. In fact, camera brands such as Leica, Sony and Pentax already use DNG as the native format for their RAW photographs. The DNG format can weigh from 15$% to 40% less than an original RAW format, without any loss of quality, when we talk about a large amount of photographs, this can mean a considerable weight.


1. Knowing these formats, let's now move on to the transformation of RAW files to DNG to bring them to our cell phones.

Adobe offers us the free possibility of its RAW to DNG converter.
Windows version

Mac version

Hereyou can also see a complete tutorial of its installation and use.

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Well, having installed our DNG converter, we select the folder with the pictures we want to convert, and they should start Converting as in the window I show above. In the Adobe Converter we can choose the destination folder and the new name of our photos. The process is extremely fast, contrary to what you might think.

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2. Now what we have to do is move this folder to our cell phone, where we should already have SNAPSEED installed.

Now, the Android APP that allows us to edit the RAW DNG files is SNAPSEED, a photo editor part of the Google Suite.
Download SnapSeed

Once we pass our photographs to the cell phone, we can see that they have a different categorization, since they come with a RAW stamp.

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3. Editing

We can see them normally in our gallery and send them to any application in their original form. To edit them we will send them to our SnapSeed editor, by doing this the application will automatically show us that the RAW Editor has been disabled and is ready for use. Right there we will see the RAW menu, we can also manipulate the photo with the basic tools of the editor (which have Tone Curve) and therefore empower our image even more.

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Soon I will make a Post with all the Edited Lot of these photos that I took to the group Teatro de La Penumbra before going on stage, for now I show you two of the photos that I have edited this way in my cell phone, the truth is that I am very excited and happy for how it works, without being tied to the PC or Laptop anymore.

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I hope these tools can help you and facilitate your creative process, I know this is not ideal but I think it is super practical and useful for those who can not have all the equipment of the computer and Lightroom.


Thank you very much for reading

Share your photos with me if you edit like this.

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When it comes to editing photos, not everyone wants to jump straight into Photoshop, especially with how pricey it can be. I’ve been exploring some alternatives that work just as well, depending on what you need. Whether it's basic touch-ups or more advanced edits, you don’t always need the Adobe subscription. If you’re like me and want something a bit more affordable but still powerful, I found this list of great Photoshop alternatives that helped me out a lot: best Adobe Photoshop alternatives. Definitely worth checking out if you’re looking for options!