iOS Camera App Luma Promises Control, RAW Photos, and Presets
The iOS app Luma aims to provide photographers with a unique, fun, and customizable photo and camera experience. While leveraging the power of RAW images on iPhone, Luma also allows users to create a custom processing pipeline saved as presets.
“My goal was to allow mobile photographers to break free from Apple’s overprocessing and allow them to create their own custom processing pipeline, with the power of RAW photos,” Rafal Kopiec, the sole developer of Luma tells PetaPixel.
Compared to competitors like Halide, Kopiec believes that Luma does a better job of straying away from Apple’s default RAW processing implementations.
“With Luma, I invite budding photographers to take control of the photo development process by encouraging them to craft their own presets. In this way, the photos they capture are truly theirs,” says Kopiec.
Within Luma, photographers can carefully craft the look of their images throughout the entire image, from before capture, during capture, all the way to the final export.
Using either Bayer RAW images (up to 12 megapixels) or Apple’s ProRAW photos (up to 48 megapixels on the iPhone 14 Pro models), Luma allows users to save processed images directly to the native Photos app. The original RAW files are saved within Luma.
Presets are among Luma’s key features. As mentioned, users can create their own presets within Luma, adjusting parameters like exposure and white balance to their preferences. The app also includes an in-app Preset Store, where users can download additional presets. Beyond presets built or downloaded within Luma, the app also supports look-up tables (LUTs).
The camera built into the app includes a user-configurable layout, allowing users to cater the app to their preferences. A simplified “Auto Cam” layout includes three buttons that control flash, exposure lock, and shutter release. From within the viewfinder, users can tap for focus and exposure, like when using the built-in Camera app on iPhone.
A more advanced layout, “Pro Cam,” provides additional access to controls. Users have direct control over ISO within Pro Cam, allowing advanced users to bypass the behavior of Apple’s built-in Camera app in low-light environments. Kopiec recommends “Pro Cam” for photography in challenging lighting conditions. Otherwise, he usually sticks with “Auto Cam.”
Luma uses the 12-megapixel Bayer RAW format by default. ProRAW is also available, and the 48-megapixel ProRAW format unique to the iPhone 14 Pro series is an option on these phones. When using ProRAW 48MP, unfortunately, Luma users can only affect exposure bias.
To summarize, Luma offers iPhone photographers a RAW photo camera app with full preset support. The customizable presets are applied at capture. The app includes complete RAW editing tools and two camera styles, Auto Cam and Pro Cam.
Luma is available now for free on the App Store.
Image credits: Luma
