5 of the Best Raw Camera Apps for Android

If you love taking pictures and might even consider yourself a professional photographer, you may be familiar with the raw images format. This format tends to be used a lot because of all its benefits.

Using the raw format can improve the quality of your images. You can also modify the parameters of the picture as well. When your Android device stores a RAW image, it will do so with a.DNG extension. The following apps are good choices for raw images.

Also read: Tips to Improve Low-Light Photography on an Android Smartphone

1. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is one the most popular and best apps for taking RAW images. The app does a great job of processing the pictures you take, and it can even give you desktop results. It allows you to work with the split toning features that gives you those excellent results.

You can also modify the curve tone, and it will sync like a charm with the desktop version (Pro). There’s a free version of the app that allows you to use all the features that have to do with organization, capture, and sharing.

If you decide to upgrade, you’ll be able to edit raw files, get your own portfolio, make selective adjustments, tag photos, import your images from a USB drive, and enjoy web galleries and geometry slider tools.

2. VSCO

With VSCO you can either take RAW images or add them. The app is free, but there are some features that you’ll need to buy to use it. The app does give you a free seven-day trial to get the full experience so you can find out if this is the app you want.

If you stick with the free version, you can still enjoy various features such as fixing exposure, sharpening, saturation, shadows, highlights, skin tone, fading and more. You can also follow other photographers and even have others follow you.

You can choose from a large variety of great filters with the option of buying more. The same goes for tones and styles. The app has an easy-to-use interface that’ll help you find the tools a lot faster.

3. Open Camera

All of the features that you’ll find in Open Camera are free. You won’t see any in-app purchases here, but you will find some great options. You can either shoot RAW images or video or use the rear or front-facing camera of your device.

This is an open-source app that allows you to change things such as the exposure, ISO, and white balance. You can stamp text as well as the time on the pictures you take so you’ll always remember when you took them.

Tap on the cog wheel, followed by more camera options, and then tap on Audio control options. Here you can have the app take the picture when it hears a loud noise or when you say ” Cheese.”

4. Footej Camera

Footej Camera is another good option you can try. It offers a simple yet feature-rich interface. You can do a large variety of things such as change the shutter speed, ISO setting, focus, white balance, focal strength, and exposure.

The app also uses Android’s camera 2 API (if your device supports it), burst mode, selfie light, panorama mode (if your device supports it), and also allows you to take pictures while you record.

If you upgrade to Premium, you can get better JPEG quality, burst intervals below 500ms, videos over five minutes, high-resolution animated GIFs, and antibanding in 50Hz. This is an app worth trying since it gives you high-quality images and is also intuitive.

5. Camera FV-5 Lite

If you like using DSLR-like controls, you’re going to like Camera FV-5 Lite. This app has a lot of manual settings that allow you to modify the focus, ISO, white balance, exposure compensation, and shutter speed. Don’t forget to use the Program mode that allows you to to take pictures at a specific ISO. There’s also the Speed Priority mode where you take snap images at the fastest shutter speed available.

The feature list keeps going with a self-timer, burst mode, guidelines, exposure bracketing, and a histogram. If you go into the app’s settings, you can also do things such as change the image resolution, change the storage location, open files from a custom storage folder, use geotagging, maximize screen brightness, and choose the kind of composition grid you want to use.

Conclusion

There are various advantages when it comes to RAW images. For example, you get clean images, can take advantage of dynamic range, can have all the metadata, and editing a raw file will leave the initial data undamaged. Why do you prefer to shoot raw images? Tell us why in the comments.