Adobe Photoshop for iPad Gaining Support for RAW Images

Tuesday October 12, 2021 9:00 am PDT by Juli Clover

Adobe today announced that Adobe Camera RAW support is coming to Photoshop on the iPad, which will allow Photoshop ‌iPad‌ users to import, open, and edit RAW files. The upcoming feature was highlighted in a demo video that Adobe shared on YouTube, but no details on when it will launch were provided.

According to Adobe, RAW support will work with file types ranging from DNG to Apple ProRAW, which is the RAW file format available on the iPhone 12 Pro and ‌iPhone‌ 13 Pro models.

RAW files can be edited like any other image, with users able to adjust aspects like exposure and noise and use Photoshop's non-destructive editing and auto-adjustment tools.

Photoshop for iPad is part of Adobe's Creative Cloud plan. Access is available priced starting at $9.99 per month for the Photography plan.

Tag: Adobe

Popular Stories

Apple Shows Off a Key Reason to Upgrade to the iPhone 17

Saturday February 7, 2026 9:26 am PST by Joe Rossignol

Apple today shared an ad that shows how the upgraded Center Stage front camera on the latest iPhones improves the process of taking a group selfie. "Watch how the new front facing camera on iPhone 17 Pro takes group selfies that automatically expand and rotate as more people come into frame," says Apple. While the ad is focused on the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max, the regular iPhone...

• 80 comments

Why Apple's iOS 26.4 Siri Upgrade Will Be Bigger Than Originally Promised

Friday February 6, 2026 3:06 pm PST by Juli Clover

In the iOS 26.4 update that's coming this spring, Apple will introduce a new version of Siri that's going to overhaul how we interact with the personal assistant and what it's able to do. The iOS 26.4 version of Siri won't work like ChatGPT or Claude, but it will rely on large language models (LLMs) and has been updated from the ground up. Upgraded Architecture The next-generation...

• 155 comments

Apple Rumored to Announce New Product on February 19

Thursday February 5, 2026 12:22 pm PST by Joe Rossignol

Apple plans to announce the iPhone 17e on Thursday, February 19, according to Macwelt, the German equivalent of Macworld. The report, citing industry sources, is available in English on Macworld. Apple announced the iPhone 16e on Wednesday, February 19 last year, so the iPhone 17e would be unveiled exactly one year later if this rumor is accurate. It is quite uncommon for Apple to unveil...

apple wallet drivers license feature iPhone 15 pro

Apple Says These 7 U.S. States Plan to Offer iPhone Driver's Licenses

Monday February 9, 2026 6:24 am PST by Joe Rossignol

In select U.S. states, residents can add their driver's license or state ID to the Apple Wallet app on the iPhone and Apple Watch, and then use it to display proof of identity or age at select airports and businesses, and in select apps. The feature is currently available in 13 U.S. states and Puerto Rico, and it is expected to launch in at least seven more in the future. To set up the...

• 83 comments

New MacBook Pros Could Now Arrive in March

Sunday February 8, 2026 6:02 am PST by Hartley Charlton

New MacBook Pro models with the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips could arrive as soon as Monday, March 2, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. In today's "Power On" newsletter, Gurman said that the release of new MacBook Pro models is tied to the release of macOS Tahoe 26.3. The launch is said to be slated for as early as the week of March 2. He added that the M4 Pro and M4 Max models on sale today...

• 126 comments

Top Rated Comments

NoSoup4U

57 months ago

One of those stories where my response is, "You mean it didn't already support RAW?"

Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)

friedmud

57 months ago

You can tell that all of the current commenters here are not photographers.

RAW is a particular way of shooting that captures "raw" data from the sensor of your camera. This means that there are _tons_ of "formats"... they are essentially different for every camera maker (and sometimes between cameras).

RAW files are _not_ "images". They are _data_. To make an image you have to "develop" the RAW into an image. Traditionally, this has been done using a RAW workflow that first included an app like Adobe RAW to do the original "developing" of the RAW... then you would go to Photoshop to touch-up / add to the photo. It's only been relatively recently that Photoshop on PCs allowed direct importing of RAW files.

Personally, I use Adobe Lightroom for importing all of my RAW files and developing them. It has an iPad version (I won't get into how the new Adobe Lightroom is different from "Classic" - it's somewhat like the debate about FCPX vs FCP) that has worked awesome for _years_ for developing RAW files... and you can open what you develop in Photoshop.

So: there hasn't been a problem with having a RAW workflow on the iPad for a while now. All this is doing is making it so that if you want to go directly to Photoshop with a RAW you can.

Now...

I still don't understand where things are headed with the M1 chip in terms of software compatibility. Why are there still "for iPad" versions of ANY apps at this point? Isn't this a dead end for developers? They should be just developing universal apps shouldn't they? One upload into the App Store for iOS and MacOS M1 apps. What am I missing?

I suspect that Photoshop on the iPad is getting this capability precisely _because_ of the M1 macs. They added it to photoshop on the M1 macs - so it made it easy to add to their iPad app. This same thing has been happening to Lightroom and Photoshop since the M1 macs debuted... the iPad versions continue to gain parity with the Mac versions.

As another poster pointed out: the iPad UI is very different... so there will always be pieces that are iPad only.

One of those stories where my response is, "You mean it didn't already support RAW?"

If you are serious about photography then you already have a RAW workflow - even on the iPad. Photoshop is generally not the first place to start with a RAW file.

The interface of an iPad app has to be different than a Mac, to be designed around touch. That said, we’ll certainly get to a point where there is a lot more fluidity between more desktop and mobile apps.

Yep.

Exactly! What exactly were people doing with an app named "Photo" shop then? Drawing pictures?

Also how do you edit large files on an iPad with tiny storage? Can you attach a USB hard drive, or does that only work on the iPad Pro that happens to have a USB port?

Working on _photos_... which are "developed" from RAW data files in another app (like Lightroom).

wow lmao this whole time it didn't support it?

Marketing ipadOS as some kind of "productivity" platform that can "replace your computeR" is a huge joke

Ridiculous. I've been using an iPad as one of my main photography productivity devices for about 5 years now (since Lightroom came out for iPad). It's actually an awesome platform for photography. Adobe's apps are fast and have a great iPad UI.

Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)

filmantopia

57 months ago

I still don't understand where things are headed with the M1 chip in terms of software compatibility. Why are there still "for iPad" versions of ANY apps at this point? Isn't this a dead end for developers? They should be just developing universal apps shouldn't they? One upload into the App Store for iOS and MacOS M1 apps. What am I missing?

The interface of an iPad app has to be different than a Mac, to be designed around touch. That said, we’ll certainly get to a point where there is a lot more fluidity between more desktop and mobile apps.

Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)

baryon

57 months ago

One of those stories where my response is, "You mean it didn't already support RAW?"

Exactly! What exactly were people doing with an app named "Photo" shop then? Drawing pictures?

Also how do you edit large files on an iPad with tiny storage? Can you attach a USB hard drive, or does that only work on the iPad Pro that happens to have a USB port?

Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)