Apple ProRAW images open dark/underexposed in Affinity Photo

[6MH89F3j]

Hey all, I am fairly new to Affinity Photo and editing RAW images. When I open an Apple ProRAW image, captured from an iPhone 13 Pro, in Affinity Photo, the image opens super dark/underexposed in the Develop persona. I have to push the Exposure slider up pretty far (3+) to get the image to a reasonable exposure. After that the image looks fine and I can continue to edit. I knot it's not suppose to look as good as the jpeg preview, but is the image opening really dark normal?

This happens if I use the 'Edit in Affinity Photo" extension or if I Export Unmodified Original and open the .dng file with Affinity Photo.

I'm using Affinity Photo on a 14" MacBook Pro (M1 Pro). I also tried on an Intel iMac and got same behavior. When I tried from an iPad, the image was actually the opposite and super overexposed.

Maybe it's all normal and not a big, but wanted to check, just in case I'm doing something wrong.

I attached a screenshot of what it looks like in Photos vs Affinity Photo.

[6MH89F3j]

Ahh, I figured out my misunderstanding. I needed to use the Develop Assistant to change the RAW Engine to Apple (Core Image RAW). But I see there are pros/cons to the different engines. More to learn!

[Björn Kulms]

Though, Apple RAW Engine is not always and everywere an option ...

This is, how it should look like:

Regarding to the Serif Labs RAW engine, this is, what the Develop Persona shows:

It looks rather ok, if you copy the "Brightness Value" from the EXIF-Record to the 32bit-Preview Exposure. BTW why is this according to the Info a "RGBA/32 (HDR), whereas the Develop Assistant was set to use "RGB 16 bit" as the RAW output format?

Compare digiKam:

Looks like Affinity with the "Brightness Value" applied, but the Tone Curve set to "Take no Action".

Last, not least, compare the embedded JPEG (IrfanView only uses that one) to Affinity with the Exposure set to the "Brightness Value" and the tone curve applied (clipping is colored red or yellow):

Is intended to compensate this by presets? 

The "brightness value" is different from IMG to IMG.

And what about the "Apple Embedded Color Profile", that the DNG_Profile_Editor is indicating as existent?

It's not the same as the "App;e Standard (iPhone 14,2 ...", thus not a dcp-question.

[BruceWard]

The Apple (Core Image RAW) RAW engine is not available for the Windows version of Affinity. Are there any plans to include this in a future update? Thanks.

[walt.farrell]

14 minutes ago, BruceWard said:

The Apple (Core Image RAW) RAW engine is not available for the Windows version of Affinity. Are there any plans to include this in a future update? Thanks.

The Apple engine is part of the macOS and iPadOS operating systems. There's no way Serif could include it on Windows. Only Apple could do that.

[BruceWard]

7 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

The Apple engine is part of the macOS and iPadOS operating systems. There's no way Serif could include it on Windows. Only Apple could do that.

Thanks, I sort of suspected that. Adobe, as you may know, handles it differently through a Profile rather than the engine.