Before starting to explain how to take photos in RAW format on any Android cell phone, you should know that the RAW format is compatible with all Android devices and it is not necessary to root your device to have access to this image format.
Taking photos in RAW format means that they will be saved on your device without any compression or automatic processing. In this way, the subsequent edition of it will be treated more easily.
How to take a RAW photo on Android with Camera FV-5 in few steps
Almost all Android Lollipop 5.0 or higher mobile devices have the RAW function built into the camera. In order to take RAW photos, your device must be compatible with the Mobile 2 API.
In case you don’t have it, you can download the Camera FV-5 Lite app from the latest version of the Google Play Store.
Once installed, open the app and enter its settings. You can find it in the upper right corner of the screen. A drop-down menu with five tabs will open.
We are going to position ourselves on the third, Photo encoding settings. It is represented by a photograph icon. From there we will check the Enable RAW capture section.
If you pay attention now the section File format change to DNG, corresponding with RAW photographs.
Ready, you already have your device configured to take high-quality photos without any restrictions. It should be noted that these types of images occupy considerably more space than JPG or PNG images occupy, so it is advisable to use an SD card to save them without taking up storage space on your device. Another alternative is to free up internal storage space so that you can save these high-quality photos on your mobile.
You can regulate the ISO, the shutter speed, the white balance, the exposure and access other tools of a professional camera.
It is not recommended that you take a photograph in RAW format if you want to upload a high-quality photograph to Facebook or another social network. You can use the PNG or JPG formats that will maintain good quality in your images and above all, they will weigh much less.
To give you an idea, a RAW photograph weighs approximately 16 MB, while a JPG photograph weighs around 4 MB. Another important fact is that you will not be able to see your images in the photo gallery, since the weight of it is not supported by the image gallery.
There is another application with which you can take RAW photos. We are talking about Open Camera. It is a free application that is continuously improved by supporting Android technologies. With it you can take pictures in manual mode and save them in RAW format later.
How to edit a RAW photo from your Android with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
To be able to edit a RAW photograph from your Android you must download the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom application. You can do it from the official Play Store.
With it you can open RAW photos on your Android to view and edit them. The application is very easy to use, so you don’t need to be an editing expert.
You can edit aspects like:
- Intake temperature
- Hue
- The exhibition
- The contrast
- The lights and shadows
- The saturation and the intensity of it
- The level of black and white
Take a few minutes to explore and see all the functions that this application has, as we mentioned before, it is a very intuitive application.
If you have any questions about how to take photos in RAW format on any Android phone, you can leave us your comment so we can help you.