So I'm really confused here because this is the entire point of me saving money for the past 3 years and if I can't figure this out, I think I'm going to give up and just return this to get something cheap to hold me over for a couple more years.
The 200mp and RAW images are substantially lower quality and resolution than the compressed JPEGs.
Additionally, the RAW images get really blown out post processing.
Why is this?
How do I stop this post processing effect?
Does anyone have a camera app they can suggest to replace the stock one?
I'm using both the stock and the expert raw apps to test, taking photos in a bunch of different settings and conditions.
The stock app makes much better pictures than the expert raw one, both in pro and auto modes.
All photos taken in 1x zoom.
The phone as a whole is kind of a usability nightmare, but I'd make so many amends for a good camera. For this to struggle so hard is actually pretty saddening.
RAW files contain loads of information you usually can't see in the preview alone, to unlock the power of RAW you will need an editing app like Light room to edit those files and bring out details. JPEGs files are edited by the phone immediately after taking the photo but the original information is lost and all you are left with is the edited/compressed file. A RAW file is like a negative from film, you have to edit those as well when you develop them to get the look you want.
This problem persists when viewing images on a 32" 4k screen
Furthermore, if you jump to image preview before postprocessing (??) is complete on the *raw* images, the images look worse after whatever's going on is complete. The previews look so much more crisp at every zoom level.
I'm aware of what raw and jpeg are - I've been doing photography for maybe a decade now, mostly digital.
That's why this baffles me - this isn't what the experience is supposed to be.
The RAW typically looks darker compared to a fully automatic photograph, which makes sense
But my concern isn't vividness - it's that the raw images are blurrier/more pixelated and are harder to bring to color/brightness parity with the compressed/postprocessed jpeg.
It's hard to make a raw image look as pretty if you don't know what you're doing, but the raw image inherently should be more detail rich to allow that. That's what's missing/wrong here.
