How I Use Samsung Expert RAW to Take Photos I'm Proud Of

I've been shooting seriously for years. I didn't expect a phone app to change how I work. Then I started using Expert RAW and I kept leaving my DSLR at home. Let me be upfront: I was skeptical. I've spent years learning exposure, composition, light, the real craft of photography. The idea of a phone app giving me "pro controls" felt like a marketing line. But a friend challenged me to shoot a full weekend using only Expert RAW, and the images I brought back changed my mind.

Here's exactly how I use it, scene by scene, in plain language: no jargon, just what I actually do and why.

First, what Expert RAW gives you that no other phone app does The big difference is that Expert RAW lets you shoot in 16-bit RAW format. When you shoot JPEG (what most phone cameras save), the phone compresses and processes the image for you, giving you a decent photo but very little room to fix it later. With RAW, you get all the raw data the sensor captured, and you edit it yourself in Lightroom or Snapseed. It's like getting the film negative instead of a drugstore print.

On top of that, you get full manual controls: ISO, shutter speed, white balance, focus. Just like a DSLR. And Expert RAW actually stacks multiple frames together automatically, which means cleaner, richer images than a single shot could produce. Scene 1: Street photography in harsh midday light

Midday sun is a photographer's headache: deep shadows under eyes, blown-out highlights on white walls, zero forgiveness. Here's what I do in Expert RAW for street work. I always save RAW and JPEG simultaneously. The JPEG I can share immediately; the RAW I take home and edit in Lightroom. In the edit, I pull the shadows up to rescue detail under those harsh light patches, something you simply can't do with a JPEG, because the data is already gone. Scene 2: Golden hour portraits This is where Expert RAW really shines for me. That warm, low light an hour before sunset is magic — but phones notoriously mess it up by boosting the exposure too aggressively and washing out all the golden tones. The RAW file from golden hour has a softness and depth that no processed JPEG can match. When I open it in Lightroom and bring the texture up just slightly, it feels like a film photograph.

Golden hour, soft backlight

I manually set white balance to 4500–5000K, warmer than daylight, and slightly underexpose by about -0.7 EV so the golden tones don't wash out. ISO stays low at 50–200. In Expert RAW I can also use the Virtual Aperture feature to get a smooth, DSLR-like background blur without the harsh edge-cutting you get from AI portrait modes. Scene 3: Night streets and long exposures

Low light is where most phone cameras fall apart, or over-correct with aggressive noise reduction that makes everything look like a watercolor painting. Expert RAW handles this differently. Scene 4: The night sky (my favourite use) I grew up in a town with genuinely dark skies, and astrophotography has always been close to my heart. Getting usable star photos used to mean carrying a dedicated tracker and a full camera setup. Expert RAW's Astrophoto mode is not a replacement for that. It is remarkably good for what it is.

Stars and Milky Way

I switch to Astrophoto mode, set the phone on a tripod, and let it run. The app stacks dozens of short exposures and compensates for Earth's rotation, so stars stay as points of light, not blurry streaks. The Sky Guide overlay helps me frame constellations without guessing. I choose "Long" duration when the sky is very dark, "Medium" when there's a bit of moonlight. What comes back is a real capture of real starlight. No AI confetti dropped on a dark photo. My quick tips before you start shooting Things I wish I'd known earlier

1

Always watch the histogram. Expert RAW shows you a live graph of your exposure. Keep it from touching either edge. That means no detail lost to pure black or pure white.

2

Shoot RAW + JPEG together. Use the JPEG for instant sharing; keep the RAW for serious editing later. You can change your mind about an image weeks after shooting.

3

Set white balance manually. Auto white balance gets fooled constantly. Pick a Kelvin value that matches your light and stick with it for a whole shoot. Your photos will feel more coherent.

4

For night shots, anything stable helps. Rest the phone on a bag, a bench, a wall. Even a slight tripod makes astrophotography possible.

5

Edit in Lightroom, not the default gallery. The 16-bit RAW files open beautifully in Lightroom Mobile. Push the shadows, pull the highlights, add a little texture. The file can handle it without falling apart. The honest truth Expert RAW doesn't replace my camera body for everything. For sports, for birds in flight, for anything that needs a real 400mm lens, I still pack the bag. But for travel, for street work, for portraits when the light is good, and especially for nights when I want to shoot the sky without hauling a kit? Expert RAW goes with me everywhere, because my phone goes everywhere.

The images I'm proudest of from the last year weren't all shot on my main camera. Some of them came from this app, on a rainy evening in the city, with the phone propped against a wall and the shutter open for six seconds. The only way to know what Expert RAW can do for your photography is to go out and try it, with your eyes actually on the scene, not buried in a camera bag. Expert RAW is a free download from the Galaxy Store. It works on Galaxy S20 series and newer. Astrophotography and Multi-Exposure modes require Galaxy S22 or later with the latest software update.

I'd love to see what you shoot, the settings above are starting points, not rules. Move the dials. See what happens.

Happy shooting. Amit ♡