RA W Power 2
An intuitive photo editor for iOS
$2.99 (IAPs) From Gentlemen Coders, gentlemencoders.com Made for iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch Needs iOS 11 or later
RAW Power 2 for iOS is developed by Nik Bhatt, formerly a member of Apple’s team behind Aperture, the now–defunct pro photo editing and management application. Also available for the Mac, it’s a significant update to version 1, transformed from a fairly simple editing app into a fully fledged photo library manager complete with iCloud syncing.
RAW is the high quality image format available on mid– and higher–end cameras, but also on iPhones and iPads if you shoot with a specialized app — Apple’s own Camera app won’t shoot RAW, even though iOS does support the format. Unlike JPEG, RAW doesn’t throw any useful information away to create smaller files. Hence larger files, but maximum quality.
Apple Photos for Mac, the Camera Roll on iOS and iCloud Photos can all handle RAW files, so if you have shot or synced them they will be available alongside your JPEGs. RAW Power accesses your iOS and iCloud photo libraries and displays all the images contained in it, listed as albums and by format. You can open images in Edit mode, where adjustment controls are available: white balance, exposure, tint, curves,
enhancement, sharpening, and many more.
These editing tools are available for all file types and there are presets too, with some adjustments locked behind two inexpensive, one– time in–app purchases. These are technical presets for enhancement and correction, and not really like Instagram filters, though you can create and store your own custom presets. For RAW files specifically, extended editing is possible thanks to the extra data they contain. For anyone familiar with photo editing these are similar to Photoshop or Lightroom’s tools — black point, color noise, detail, lens correction, and the like.
All edits that you make in the app are non–destructive, so you can revert back to the original photo at any time. Edits are also synced across iCloud between copies of the app running on all your devices. Also new in version 2 is batch editing — the ability to apply the same preset or adjustment across multiple images at once. You can also batch revert images to originals, generate JPEGs from RAWs and now also export to Photos as TIFF or PNG files.
RAW Power certainly has pro features, but it’s also an excellent photo editing and cataloguing tool for photographers of any level. The edit tools, while vast, are easy to grasp and the app as a whole is well designed and friendly. The upgrades in version 2 are huge, with batch processing, full iCloud support, the ability to create your own presets, and much more making this a superb image editor for iOS. More advanced than Apple’s own iOS Photos app but arguably just as easy to use for the majority of people, it also happens to be very competitively priced. At just a few dollars, even after unlocking the advanced adjustments, Raw Power 2 is an excellent way to edit and manage all your photos, from JPEG to RAW.
the bottom line. A hugely impressive, powerful but easy–to–use photo editor and manager with RAW support, iCloud syncing, and much more.