Samsung says the Galaxy S23, S23 Plus, and S23 Ultra will ask users to install Adobe Lightroom when handling DNGs and make the app the default raw photo editor
Context & Ripple Effects
Adobe spent nearly a decade earning this placement: Lightroom arrived on Android in 2015 as a phones-only app, then its 2.0 release became the first mobile app to capture DNG raw photos, followed by [[a:877486|full RAW editing support with the mobile app free but editing and sync gated behind a $10+/month subscription]]. By 2017 it was shooting RAW HDR directly on flagships like the Galaxy S7.
Now Samsung is formalizing that history into a default: the Galaxy S23, S23 Plus, and S23 Ultra will prompt users to install Lightroom when they open a DNG and make it the default raw editor. The timing tracks with the S23 Ultra's rumored 200MP camera — leaked marketing images showed the hardware weeks ago, and bigger sensors mean more owners actually producing raw files that need an editor.
First-order effects
- Every S23-series owner who opens a DNG hits an install prompt for Lightroom, handing Adobe a pre-qualified audience of raw-shooting users it didn't have to acquire through the Play Store.
- Samsung ships the S23 camera story — including the rumored 200MP Ultra sensor — without having built or maintained its own raw editing pipeline; the format-handling layer is outsourced to Adobe.
Second-order effects
- Third-party Android raw editors lose the default slot at exactly the moment high-resolution raw capture goes mainstream on Samsung hardware, forcing them to compete on features rather than placement.
- Lightroom's free-install funnel feeds directly into Adobe's paid mobile tier — the same $10+/month editing-and-sync subscription it introduced in 2016 — so each prompted install is a subscription prospect.
Third-order effects
- If OEMs keep delegating format-level software to the vendor that owns the format, control of the default handler becomes the real battleground — the app store matters less than being named in the OS prompt.
- As computational photography pushes raw output toward ordinary users, phone makers specializing in silicon and cameras while ceding the editing workflow to software specialists could harden into an industry division of labor.
The trend: Smartphone makers are ceding the post-capture software layer to the vendors who own the file formats, turning default-handler status into the most valuable distribution in mobile imaging.