What does the mobile phone camera raw mean?

Mobile phone camera raw refers to unprocessed photos.

In fact, the RAW format is not a photo, but a file. RAW means raw and natural in English. When it corresponds to a camera, the sensor converts the captured optical signal into raw data of a digital signal. Translated, the RAW format file records the original data when the camera takes pictures. In fact, the RAW file is a general term, and the RAW file shot by each camera brand will have different suffixes. JPG itself is a unified photo format, so the suffix is JPG or JPEG.

The difference between original photos and JPG photos

RAW files are closely related to JPG photos, because RAW files can directly generate JPG photos, and vice versa. JPG photos actually come from RAW files in the camera processing machine, such as white balance, sharpness, saturation, noise reduction and so on. , and then package to get JPG photos.

We usually use color depth to describe pictures, and the unit is bits. The color depth of common JPG photos is generally 8bit, while the color depth of RAW files is generally 12bit or 14bit. Some top cameras such as professional medium format cameras can reach 16bit. The higher the color depth, such as 16bit, the richer the original data information and the larger the corresponding file size.