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I have several high quality presets. Some of them I have bought, some I have created. Once I apply them to raw outputs from my Canon or Panasonic cameras, the results are (after light tweaking) perfect!

Even if I apply them to DJI Mavic raw files, it's still acceptable.

But when it comes to smartphone raw outputs, the result is always unacceptable, no matter how much I try. I have tons of raw photos from LG g4/v10/v30, Xiaomi 4/11 Ultra, Samsung s21 Ultra and I can speak for all of them.

All these smartphone raw files require either a completly different approach, or they are simply not even worth trying (comparing to how much hours I spend on it over actual result).

What do you think?

I would love to find some way, even if I should have special presets just for certain types of camera, but still, I haven't got to that point as the colors, sharpness and so on are far behind usability.

Glad to know your experience!

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  • \$\begingroup\$ What kind of 'presets'? One for a black cat in a coal cellar would be less useful on a polar bear in the snow. Any preset requires comparable input to desired output. \$\endgroup\$
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Oct 2, 2021 at 18:25
  • \$\begingroup\$ yes, my presets are made for specific lighting contidions \$\endgroup\$
    – JZK
    Commented Oct 2, 2021 at 18:34
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    \$\begingroup\$ Is your question about presets for RAW files from smartphones or about the quality of images you can get from RAW files of smartphones? It seems to be a little bit of both. Maybe you should first validate whether or not the smartphone can be a camera for your needs and when this is confirmed to find the presets or be more specific about how to define them ? \$\endgroup\$
    – Tristan Romain
    Commented Oct 20, 2021 at 14:37

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Short answer is yes. However, I’ve never been a pre-set user. I treat each file on its merits and what I hope to achieve from the file. Having said all this, I’ve yet to print a file from my current phone, but have made up to A2 from other phones and using RAW meant I could recover detail n areas that would otherwise been lost.

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My personal experience is based on the photos from Canon 5D Mark III and OnePlus 8T. Usually I do not use presets in Lightroom. What I see is phone RAW files do not have dynamic diapason of DSLR (they are 12bit, compared to 14 bits of Canon). But with proper exposure I can restore highlights and in some degree (with some noise) the shadows.

If you compare sensors size you will see significant difference - FF compared to 1/2" sensor.

So for me seems like your presets overprocess the images and are just not so applicable for phone photos.

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    \$\begingroup\$ exaclty, as you said, my presets overprocess the image. Sure, sensor size and different inner processing techniques matters as well as 12 vs 14 bit, but, still. Are you consider raw from smartphone usable for your results, or you do it only on emergency case, when no other photos are good ? Thank you! \$\endgroup\$
    – JZK
    Commented Oct 2, 2021 at 9:31
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    \$\begingroup\$ @JZK, it depend of your understanding of "usable for your results". But for me they are (almost) always OK. Yes, there are challenging situations but... Also you can try to play with some settings in Pro mode :) \$\endgroup\$
    – Romeo Ninov
    Commented Oct 2, 2021 at 9:37
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Even a crop size sensor won't give you more than 25MP on a DSLR, but sadly on a cellphone, you can get almost 50MP for less than half the size. Naturally the pixels are condensed. The diameter of the pixels of DSLR are ~7 µm, while, for smartphones it's ~1.2 to 2 μm(max). This is what will cause lower sensitivity in low light, panning and burst photography, because of which the resulting RAW files will never be quite up to the mark.

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