RAW Experience: Mosaic Camera

A camera sensor doesn't see color. Each of its millions of light-sensitive elements sits under a tiny filter that passes only red, green or blue, so the raw image is a mosaic of single-color dots. RAW Experience shows you that mosaic live, through your iPhone's camera, and how demosaicing turns it into a full-color photo. COLOR FILTER PATTERNS • Bayer (RGGB): the most popular pattern, used in iPhone cameras • Quad Bayer: an enlarged Bayer, used in the 48MP main camera of iPhone 14 Pro and later • X-Trans: Fujifilm's pattern, designed to resist color moiré • CYGM and CYYM: cyan, yellow, green and magenta patterns of early Nikon, Canon and Kodak cameras • RGBE: Sony's red, green, blue and emerald • RGBW and RYYB: newer patterns for higher sensitivity, e.g. in the Huawei P30 series • RGB: the full-color picture, for comparison SEE HOW IT WORKS • Demosaic: rebuild full color from the mosaic, with the artifacts it brings, from color fringes to moiré • Grayscale: only the light intensity each element measured • Pixel size from 5 to 40 px, to see the pattern up close or the picture as a whole • An introduction to how image sensors work, and a note on every pattern A CAMERA, TOO Take photos with the filter applied; they're saved to a "RAW Experience" album in Photos. Use the back or front camera, a flash (the torch, or a white screen for selfies), and long exposures of 1, 3 or 10 seconds, or hold the shutter for as long as you like. Shoot with the volume buttons, or the Camera Control on iPhone 16 and later, which also picks the pattern and the pixel size. RAW EXPERIENCE PRO All features and seven patterns are open to everyone. A one-time Pro purchase unlocks RGBW and RYYB and supports the app's development. In English and Ukrainian.