Samsung's Galaxy S23 reveal at its Unpacked event this week included a number of camera-related enhancements—a 200-megapixel mode, 8K30 video shooting, optical image stabilization, laser autofocus, and Nightography, just to name a few.
It also touted the Expert RAW photo file format used in the phone’s cameras. The feature is Samsung’s answer to the ProRAW format used in Apple’s top-end iPhones. Both formats combine the raw image data from the sensor with computational photo wizardry courtesy of the phone’s processing hardware.
For years I’ve been urging readers who are serious about good photography to shoot to raw file formats, because it gives you so much control when editing images after the shot, compared with using the JPG format. JPG is a compressed, lossy format that’s a best guess based on the sensor data for a final product. When you shoot in raw format, you get all the image data from the sensor, and in the case of Expert RAW, that’s combined with the phone’s image enhancements.
Not all photo software can handle all cameras’ raw formats, and that’s just as true of the Expert RAW format, which, by the way, supports 16-bit color depth, compared with Apple ProRAW’s 12-bits, for considerably more color information. It saves both JPG and DNG raw file formats. In addition to the after-shot editing possibilities shooting in raw adds, the Expert RAW app offers detailed photo settings like ISO, white balance, shutter speed, and exposure value (EV).
For Expert RAW, Samsung and Adobe have announced that Lightroom will be the “exclusive default photo editor for RAW photos taken with the Expert RAW app." To take advantage of the new format, Galaxy owners will have to download the Expert RAW app from the Samsung Galaxy Store. Then, when they use that app to shoot pictures, they can use the app or the phone’s native Camera app to get raw files as well as JPGs.
The app is available for the Galaxy S22 Ultra, S22+, S22, and S21 Ultra, as well.
The companies claim that Lightroom is the only photo editor that will work with raw files from the Galaxy S23 phones: "We’re excited to see Samsung enhance the Expert RAW app as a native camera option, with Lightroom as the default and only photo editor,” Scott Belsky, Adobe chief product officer and EVP, said in a statement. Previous phone versions’ Expert RAW apps produced DNG files that other photo software is capable of editing.
We tried opening and editing a raw DNG file in the Galaxy S23's Gallery app, and we could edit the photo but when saving the edits we only had a JPG left. Stay tuned for clarification on whether the exclusivity means that you can’t edit the DNGs produced by the new phones in any other software or simply that Lightroom has exclusive direct hooks into Expert RAW.
It’s also possible that Lightroom is the only app on the phone that can edit the files, though you could transfer them to a PC for editing on, say DxO PhotoLab. I'll update this article when I hear back from Adobe on these questions.
How Much Does Lightroom Cost on Galaxy Phones?
You can download the Lightroom app from either Google Play store or the Galaxy Store for free, and the free version gives you plenty of editing, organizing, and sharing features. The free version does not, however, get you cloud syncing of photos, some advanced tools like effect filters, masking, healing brush, geometry corrections, and a few more advanced features. One of those advanced features? Editing raw photos. So you need a paid Adobe subscription to edit Expert RAW photos from your Galaxy S23.
On the Samsung Galaxy laptops, there’s no free version—you’ll need the $9.99-per-month Lightroom subscription, the same subscription cost you’d pay for the premium mobile features. Adobe is offering Galaxy S23 owners two months free, however.
Samsung Laptops, Too!
Adobe further announced that those who shoot photos in the Expert RAW format will be able to sync the images to Samsung Galaxy laptops for editing in Lightroom on those, too. However, this is not an exclusive feature: You can use a Lightroom account to sync photos between any phone and laptop where you’ve logged in to your subscription.
Get Better Smartphone Photos!
For more on editing photos on your phone, read our picks for the best mobile photo editing apps, our tips for taking better smartphone photos, and for general photography advice, read 10 Beyond-Basic Digital Photography Tips.
Eric Zeman contributed to this story.