RAW Power Reviews

by "Ravishing" Rick

I downloaded RAWPower when I was told that the price went from $9.99 to Free, presumably as a Memorial Day sale. About an hour later, there’s an update and now RAWPower is free to use but places a large watermark on the image unless you pay the $9.99 to unlock the full version. While I understand that trials are a good way to have people test out an app before they decide to pay for it, dropping the price of an app to free and then essentially neutering it with an update that, for many people, automatically is downloaded and installed seems like a bit of an underhanded and deceptive way to go about things.

by ApplegeekNV

So we bought RAWPower to help with our photo editing. We bought it with the expectation that basic photo editing like brightness, saturation, contrast, cropping, temperature, and other basic tools like that would be available. Imagine our shock when your asked to PAY for the ability to crop, adjust white balance, or convert to black and white.

Apps like Snapseed offer these tools, free! We only bought RAWPower mainly for the ability to “batch edit” photos. Which is the only option that Snapseed doesn’t have. I’m definitely not happy with all of the a la carte buying that your forced to do. I understand that developers want and need to make a profit, but fleecing your users for $1.99 here, and $1.99 there for basic photo editing features? Not okay at all! They do offer some of the basic editing tools “bundled” with one or two of the more “advanced” features. That’s really underhanded.

by Jamsegs

Recently purchased RAWPower and it has the same issue as others have reported at least on my iPAD Pro, running iOS 12.3.1, RAWPower never loads the RAWS album, the spinning symbol never stops. For me that is really only a minor issue as my raw images are shown in the camera roll album and Recently Added album within RAWPower but if I didn’t know which images were actually saved in RAW it would be more troublesome. Deleting RAWPower and reinstalling did not resolve the issue.

by Mark Paterson

I love the idea behind RAWPower , I wish it well. I even purchased the $4.99 upgrade… but… I have a few issues with it that I hope for their sake they can fix before something better comes along and steals their thunder.

The UI is clunky and needs work. You can tell it was designed by an engineer ;) I find myself constantly battling against it.

For example: it’s impossible to see the entire Curves graph and RGB channels at once. Crazy.

There’s also no feedback on the bottom icons to indicate which mode you’re in. They just all stay white all the time.

And that Gill Sans like font is pretty ugly. I thought this was designed by a former Apple guy. Why not just use the standard Apple UI toolkit? Or at least follow their guidelines closer. No need to reinvent the wheel just to be different. Especially if it gets in the way of the experience.

Also, from a functional perspective, an ‘Auto’ command, like Lightroom or Apple Photos would be a great thing to have. Even if the command is not perfect, it’s usually a good starting point.

I mean no disrespect. I want RAWPower to succeed and be a nice place to hang out and edit pics, but at the minute it’s a little ugly and rough around the edges.

Despite all this, I have been happy enough with the editing results, so I think a few cosmetic changes to the UI could work wonders.

by Arg245

I was about to dump LR in favor of using a completely mobile, iOS process with this app, and just discovered that all edits need to happen in your local Files storage on your device. Seems this app has to download the files locally to effect edits. Of course, if you use the Apple Photos app to manage your assets within this app, then this app edits can happen “in the cloud”. But that’s not what I’m looking for. Also, as many others have mentioned, the lack of healing tools is a huge letdown. I really like RAWPower, but without those two features (direct cloud editing w/o Apple photos, and healing), its just not ready to be a serious replacement for LR. Its a shame.

by PatriotUSA

I like where this is going and see a lot of potential in it, which is why I purchased the pro tools to support the effort. I like the fact it works as a plug-in to Photos and saves back to that library instead of its own library. I purchased 2TB of iCloud storage and that is how I store and synchronize most of my pictures now. I edit a lot on my iPad Pro now, but would like to hand off and edit on my Mac with the same tools. And as someone who LOVED Aperture, I am glad to see a company that would like to give us that experience again. That said, there are some things I will need to make it my main editor. First, it needs a vignette tool. If it could add an inner glow like some other editors while making a darker edge vignette that would be great. I also need the ability to brush the adjustments in, preferably in layers but at least with multiple spot adjustments. Brush compatibility here with the Apple Pencil would be essential. An example of why this is need is when making shadow adjustments, sometimes a global shadow adjustment will simply not work as usually there are some shadows you want to keep, while others you need to get more detail out of. Anyway keep up the good work and if it gets better I will certainly use it more and promote it.

by Digital Noise

Love RAWPower that gives new life to my workflow on the ipad pro. My only major complaint is the batch export feature that doesn't work properly when a crop is applied to my 42MP file... I just want a smaller jpg of the cropped section of my file. Instead, it produced some other section of my cropped file and included a white outline... strange... hope this bug will be fixed soon because it's super-important to me!

by Skeptical Tiger

Love the editor and what it can do. I do notice when I am zoomed in and try to drag the adjustment bars it lags to where I have to zoom out to have any fluidity. I also noticed an issue today where when I finish editing a raw photo and try to copy the option, the screen darkens to where I can’t see much if anything but the bar at the top and IPad itself is at the brightness I set. Would love for the devs to look at this

by Danchow

I photograph mostly flat art work to post to my website. For example, my paintings. What has kept me from using Raw Power as my go to image editor is its lack of the option to adjust parallax error. I’m not sure I’m using the correct term. Anyway, I’m referring to the option that is available in Lightroom, Geometry. It would be wonderful to see this option added to RAW Power. Please. Thanks!

by Frost-kaxt

I have been a Lightroom user for so many years, and recently I have been trying to move my workflow to use iPad without any luck until I found this wonderful app. I love how I can import my images to either photos or files app and flag, rate my pictures. I just have a couple suggestions to make, would be wonderful if we could have a folder system on the files part of RAWPower , that way we can organize by events. As of right now the only bad thing about RAWPower is a weird bug where the sorting option is not working, on the settings there’s an option to force sort by creation date but when I deselect that it still do the same. Would be very cool if we can sort by name.

Edit: woohoo we just got HSL color edit feature plus other good stuff on an update, I love how RAWPower gets better and better

by Blueridgeworkshops

I started using this when it was first introduced and have it both on Ios and Mac. The overall development of RAWPower has been steady and highly functional and rivals some of the best processing apps and programs in the market at a more than fair price for what it helps anyone accomplish.

I find the sliders are highly precise and accurate unlike other apps and programs that either do virtually nothing or in too many cases too much. These controls are just right.

It is worth more than the five star rating I have given it.

What I would like to see is more presets that are more closely related to what the Lightroom app offers. It is not that important but they are nice to have. RAWPower does have quite a few presets but they are more for base adjustments while Lightroom’s are more for altering a style.

However, this is my go to program for almost everything I do either on my Fuji X camera, Osmo Pocket, or Iphone.

by FearAndLoathingABC

I have been using RAW POWER on my Desktop for almost 2 years (McBook Pro). I like it a lot. I have also used PhotoShop (liked it a lot). Tried Lightroom but gave it up. Raw Power was my solution because I gave up trying to XFR my Adobe Photoshop license from my 10 yr old computer to my MacBook Pro.

I rescently purchased an iPhone 15 Pro Max and found out that Raw Power on my new iPhone was delightful to use to edit my Raw iPhone photos in place on my new iPhone.

by Rottclan

I’ve only used RAWPower for a few days and I have not found anything I would change. I think RAW Power, iPhone & iPad, is a wonderful app and I appreciate the devs hard work, attention to detail, and quick response to questions. I like the simplicity of working in the photos stream and not needing to futz with exporting like Affinity, Lightroom, ect. I only wish I had a mac so I could enjoy a desktop version.

by Mechanicaljesse

It’s such a pleasure that in the overwhelming world of imaging apps that Raw Power chooses to have mission. To choose to handle the critical task of quickly adjusting your images.

The interface is what a touch interface should be. Powerful and accessible. You can start using this software immediately. It leverages our learned behavior of how to use imaging software in conjunction with a touch interface we have become accustomed to.

by Pdmao2

I have used Photoshop, Capture 1, Lightroom and other apps, everyone has their pros and cons but once you get to play with Raw Power and the ability to play directly with RAW images and with the Apple foundation, I have to say it is a solid photo editing tool, lof us some profiles and away you go. I shoot with a Leica Q2, created my setups and off the to races I go. My recommendation to people questioning what is the best, pick one, learn it, use it and get to know the power and work around the limits.

Every tool out there has many things going for them but this is efficient, effective and delivers on value. Sync / switch seem less between phone, MACPro and iPadPro.

by BAR112

Since I've traded in my old iPhone for the newest iPhone Pro 13 with RAW-capture ability, I'm now getting into RAW photography and editing. RAWPower does it all! It's especially handy for sharpening photos. No user manual needed (like many photo editor apps); UI is simple to use and efficient. Highly recommended!

by Bobdobbs1999

EDIT: I complain below about the Adjust tools being on the left, but I did not realize they can be moved to the right if you move the Info panel first (!). This is terrific, even though it's not completely intuitive (it doesn't seem you can move the Adjust panel). RAWPower works great for me now. Thanks guys!

Original critique follows, for posterity.

I'm an iCloud Photo Library user, and I really like how RAWPower seamlessly integrates with it. I also shoot Pentax and Olympus RAWs, edit on 2017 iPad Pro 12.9, and with RAWPower I don't have to think about importing and exporting like I do with the competitors' apps. I want to use RAWPower simply for how friction-free that experience is. But in landscape mode the Adjust tools are on the left. WHY??? Roughly 90% of the population is right handed. Putting the Adjust tools on the left means 90% of the population has to reach to the other side of the screen, blocking the content they're trying to manipulate. Plus, it's uncomfortable, even when using a Pencil. Bad design decision, guys. Did the devs try this use case? Is the CEO left-handed?

Devs, please move the Adjust tools to the right side, or at least make it a user preference setting. If the tools were on the right, I'd pay to unlock. As it is now, editing with this UI is cumbersome. Thank you.

by Hughfwolfe

I just recently purchased the few items not included in the free version, felt I was missing part of the ability to edit my photos. Should have been included in the original free version but I suppose somebody’s got to pay these guys for their work...

At any rate I’m slowly learning what each adjustment slider does, some are quite a bit more evident than others. No I’ve not read the instructions as of yet, I’ve got eight years of photo editing to my credit however this is a different system thus it’ll take a bit of trial and error to iron things out just like the Snapseed and NIK systems did. Pretty much pleased with my results thus far although sometimes the RAW module adjustments seem nearly impossible to manipulate back to the way I remember the scene.

by Paperscenery

I’m a professional photographer and cinematographer and I have been test driving the iPhone X to see if I can create publication quality images with the dual camera. Out of the box, I was hugely disappointed with the file quality—too contrasty, nasty blotchy noise reduction.

So I started exploring manual camera apps and discovered Obscura. Just locking down exposure and focus controls made a huge difference, but the raw format option is what got me excited. Enter RAW Power and now I can shoot properly exposed files and optimize them in a raw, lossless workflow, all on the iPhone X.

Brief list of awesome features:
-True raw, lossless workflow (you can reopen after saving and make adjustments, all the original data is still there.)
-True WB temp and tint controls (not one-dimensional warmth)
-Separate raw and post tone and sharpness controls.
-Four channel RGB curves with blending control. Yes, real curves.
-Copy and paste adjustments from one file to another.
-Intelligent and intuitive layout/workflow.

Things that could be better:
-Thin, small caps typography is ugly and not very legible.
-Sliders use touch controls only, so hard to fine tune WB tint. Would be smart to have a plus and minus button on either end for incremental steps.
- Export vs save options not clearly defined or documented.

On balance this is an amazing tool.

by Picnicmetoo

I’ve shot RAW for 17 years, kept those RAWs on external drives because it was believed that better processors down the road could result in better photos-& it was so. Now I feel I no longer need to keep RAWs so I process and keep the jpegs-& RAW power is a great way to organize-drag into folders, delete the RAWs after processing, and occasionally process and take that processed file into another app to use layers perhaps-or masking/selecting. I’ve come to appreciate RAW power more over past 6 months as I’ve changed my workflow and discovered how helpful it is in organizing.

by Jofte

I am using this with my Nikon Z7. The quality of raw processing and available options are outstanding, truly desktop class. There is no other app on iOS (I have tried too many of them ...) that comes anywhere close to this one.
Performance (speed) and stability are fantastic, tested on iPad Pro 11” and iPhone XS max.