Poor image quality when taking photos with Lightroom mobile app on phone

[The Guy Who Takes Photos]

I hope someone can help - I've looked through the forums but can't find a question covering my query.

In a nutshell, I find the photos I take on my Google Pixel 3a to be better then ones I take using my Lightroom app, both in jpeg and dng formats.

There, I've said it.

In years gone by (post film photography) I've always taken RAW files on my dslrs, and processed accordingly.

More recently, with the massive improvements in camera phones, I find myself taking more photos with my Pixel 3a (in addition to my old 35mm & medium format gear) having now got rid of my dslr equipment.

So my natural assumption was that dng files via LR would be superior to jpegs from my phone. 

I've done some controlled captures of both (including LR jpegs as well) and the Pixel 3a's images look noticeably better (exposure/contrast/colour/sharpness/noise) than either jpegs or dng files form LR.

I've tried to process the dng files to the best of my knowledge and experience but can't get them anywhere near the Pixel 3a's jpegs. Although I admit I'm not the greatest photographer/post processor/printer in the world, I have been doing it for a lot of years (at one point making my living from it).

Now the obvious answer to this is that my file processing is not good enough, however there are (at least) two points to note: 1. If it isn't, I'd be more than happy to get advice to improve my processing technique; 2. Is it reasonable to expect to have to take dng files, and carry out all the associated processing, in order to achieve results that match jpegs straight from the Pixel 3a?

For what it's worth I also did a comparison between my phone, LR app, and my Lumix DMC-TZ70, and my phone came out a clear winner (I appreciate the tech in my Lumix is now several years older than that in my phone).

I've been struggling with this for a while now. I'm hoping that I'm so stupid that someone will point out the obvious thing I've been missing.

Or have other people had the same experience, and will just tell me that phone image capture & processing technology has improved significantly over the years?

Aa a means of image capture is my LR app surplus to requirements???

[adamcan2]

Having the same problem with my iPhone 11 Pro. Shot family photos with iPhone and with Lr Mobile in Raw and iPhone photos are much better.  You can see the two below and it's not hard to tell which is which.  Am I missing something?

 

 

[selondon]

I'd image it's something to do with the amount of automatic processing that Apple, Google, Samsung etc.include in their camera apps... to make the 'perfect photo'. Be it, sharpening, noise reduction, exposure or vibration reduction.

[raphaelw20647669]

I also have problems with the Lr Mobile app, on my iPhone 13 Pro Max. Take a look at the two attached shots. Noise, and an inability to handle the motion of the subjects - even with stated exposure times of 1/42000 and 1/9400, respectively! I took over 700 photos on that day (July 31st) - every few seconds for minutes at a time - and hundreds exhibited these quality problems. What is the explanation for this?

  

[Michael J. Hoffman]

It looks to me like you took these photos in HDR mode, and the artifacts you are seeing are because HDR merges two or more exposures together. Any motion creates a conflict. 

mid you look at these photos in the grid view, and two-finger tap to show the file type overlay, do you see HDR? See my screen shot below:

 

[raphaelw20647669]

D'oh! Thank you Michael, yes, I had the Lr Mobile camera in HDR mode.

Is the regular iPhone camera smart enough to disable HDR when there's two much motion? I probably assumed that the Lr Mobile camera had the same smarts - sure wish it did!

[raphaelw20647669]

Besides HDR, are there any other differences, when saving RAW, between the way the regular iPhone camera app and the Lr Mobile camera app operate? All settings equal, do they both get the same quality from the hardware camera?