Apple Pro Raw initial Lightroom rendering differs from iOS Apps/Windows photo viewer

[MasternesS Mike]

I have multiple sunset photos taken on the iphone 14 pro max in RAW format. The original photo has distinct light rays shining throigh the clouds. This is visible on the device, on the upload to ipad and also on my windows photo viewer. When importing this photo into lightroom all of these details are gone. I have  case open with tech support and they have said it is an issue with the apple pro raw color profile they are using. Case # ADB-27875045-K4H3. This issue is able to be recreated on multiple machines with the same result. My pre-import photo has all the details and information displaying correctly, whilst the post-import image in lightroom is missing all the detail.

Original Photo

Lightroom Imported Photo

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Is it possible for you to share with us a DNG file exported from any of the clients you've mentioned (iOS, Mac, Win)

[MasternesS Mike]

Exporting does not fix the issue nor show anything differnt than my post-import example

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Asking again: 

Is it possible for you to share with us a DNG file exported from any of the clients you've mentioned (iOS, Mac, Win)?

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Asking again: 

Is it possible for you to share with us a DNG file exported from any of the clients you've mentioned (iOS, Mac, Win)?

A JPEG file is of no value in evaluating this question. 

[MasternesS Mike]

apologies, but the file I attached was the .dng. It must have converted. I will send again. 

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Generally, the easiest way to do this is to drop the DNG into one of your Creative Cloud Folders, allow it to sync, then share the link. 

[MasternesS Mike]

Thank you for the guidance, dropping into the chat was not working. 🙂

https://shared-assets.adobe.com/link/4e8683cd-9b46-4446-6f32-f122cdfa37b7

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Thank you for sending the file. 

The image you are seeing with the 'rays' is actually not the  image but rather the embedded preview created by Apple's internal processing and attached to the file for the convenience of viewer applications.  See this Lightroom Classic screen capture and note the "Embedded Preview" bezel in the lower right: 

This explains why programs like your Windows viewer show the processed detail. Programs rely on embedded previews to display files without having to actually process them. 

Bringing this file into Lightroom's Develop Module you are automatically moving from the 8-bit P3 profile embedded preview into a 16-bit Pro Photo color space and processing the image to show you a more accurate rendering of the raw file.  A quick grab of the Highlights slider and pulling it to the left reveals the ray detail is still present. Further, sending the image into Camera Raw where the HDR Beta feature is enabled shows you a better rendering yet. 

As HDR features for Lightroom come on line in upcoming releases, you will have additional tools to evaluate and edit images like this. 

Ultimately, the behavior looks correct but if you prefer the Apple in-camera processing, you can choose to use it or,  you can edit the image in Lightroom to achieve a similar result.  Here is a Camera Raw (Beta HDR feature enabled edit that brings back the rays. 

[MasternesS Mike]

Thank you for the in depth explanation. I know the cameras on phones do tons of processing to make it look great out of the box. At least in this case with this image, the rays were actually visible to the eye as well. I was quite surprised the camera was able to capture the rays in the first place.

That being said, am I able to edit the embedded preview? I ask because, no matter how much editing I do in Lightroom, I can not get the rays to look as pronounced as the embedded preview. 

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

To 'edit' the embedded preview, it is likely your best option will be to output the file from the iOS Photos app direct to a location where you can import it into Lightroom and then edit from the new baseline file.  In order to preserve its appearance, you will need to 'bake in' the changes by creating a JPEG/Tiff/PNG or similar. Simply saving the raw file to a new location and reimporting it would put you back in the spot you are currently in. 

[MasternesS Mike]

Not sure when the feature was added, But playing around with the HDR feature has enabled me to have the colors and the rays be visible in my edits now! Thank you for your time helping me through this.