The very term “raw format” is confusing. Having long since ceased to mean “unprocessed sensor data”, nowadays raw (or indeed the ever-shouting all-caps “RAW”) is primarily a marketing term used to denote lossily processed data left and right (ProRes RAW, BRAW, Sony’s “raw” .arw files that in fact come lossy from some cameras), causing much dismay to terminology purists or photography enthusiasts who want to work with the full range of values their camera is capable of capturing.

On the other hand, there is a definition for what constitutes scene-referred data.

ProRAW is scene-referred AFAIC. Un-demosaiced CMOS data is useless, and I am not holding my breath for any breakthroughs in demosaicing algorithms. As TFA stated, control over hardware gives Apple the opportunity to handle this stage better than what we are used to in the decoupled camera manufacturers vs. post-processing software developers world.

Unless there is more loss happening in addition to demosaicing, I am inclined to say this is on balance good stuff and good tidings for DNG format, although I wish Apple called it for what it is (i.e., DNG, not ProRAW).

> The very term “raw format” is confusing.

That's why I didn't mention "raw format", only raw. :)

> Sony’s “raw” .arw files that in fact come lossy from some cameras

Yeah, had one of those. First gen ⍺7. To me raw denotes that data has not been demosaiced. But, as you note, mosaiced data can also be cooked and lossy compressed.

I'm not saying ProRAW (i.e. multi exposure linear DNG) is a bad thing. In fact, I've been waiting for something like this for years. The output from my Pixel cameras with their computational features like Night Sight has floored me. But still, there's almost no editing headroom in these overly contrasty JPEGs. The future is merged!

> nowadays raw (or indeed the ever-shouting all-caps “RAW”) is primarily a marketing term used to denote lossily processed data left and right (ProRes RAW, BRAW, Sony’s “raw” .arw files that in fact come lossy from some cameras)

That does happen but I don't agree that it's "primarily" used that way. Canon and Nikon are still dominant and still use it to refer to uncompressed raw images.

My exposure to this issue was mostly through mirrorless cameras (where Sony has been huge) and raw video capture formats (I almost got a BMPCC this year, but at the last moment found out that they have entirely dropped support for CinemaDNG and replaced it with compressed BRAW).

I was not at all expecting raw capture to mean something else here compared to DSLR world, so I guess my disappointment shows.

Are you referring to confusion in the article, or among users?

Everyone spells it with all caps. Browse DPReview for a bit. "RAW" is just the convention, even though it makes no sense.

It makes a tiny bit of sense.

Early digital cameras still had RAW files, if anything they were more important since the onboard chips for synthesizing JPGs weren't very powerful.

At the time, portable storage like Compact Flash or Sony Memory Stick was often formated in good ol' FAT32, so 8.3 file names using only capital letters was a longstanding convention.

They were .RAW files, not .raw, in other words, and frequently enough, still are.

It makes a lot more sense if you say it as upper case every time you say it out loud. "I shoot in raw format" vs "I shoot in RAW format!!" It makes the conversation more interesting.