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Rikk Flohr_Photography
Community Manager
Rikk Flohr_PhotographyCommunity Manager
Community Manager
May 23, 2025
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P: Introducing the Project Indigo camera app

  • May 23, 2025
  • 354 replies
  • 225567 views

This post applies to the Project Indigo iOS camera app. 

 

Adobe Labs is excited to share an early look at Project Indigo, an iPhone camera app we've started to develop, to get feedback from the photography community. The app offers full manual controls, a more natural ("SLR-like") look, and high image quality in both JPEG and raw formats. It also introduces some new photographic experiences not available in other camera apps. For more information on the underlying technology, please refer to this Project Indigo blog post.

 

Before you start with Project Indigo 

  • We recommend using Project Indigo on iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max or newer devices.
    (Also supported are 12 Pro/Pro Max, 13 Pro/Pro Max, and all 14-series devices.)
  • You should have at least 1GB of storage space left for the app, the downloadable AI Models inside the app, and for captured photos. 

 

Recipes for success when using Project Indigo 

To get the maximum out of your images captured with the app, follow these guidelines: 

  • When reviewing the results, focus on Project Indigo's more natural look (in both SDR and HDR). If you haven’t done this before, try viewing the images on your laptop or desktop device, preferably on an HDR screen. 
  • Capture with both JPEG and raw DNGs with file saving enabled. Project Indigo produces computational photography DNG files, which have the same natural look as JPEG images, but much more latitude for editing after capture. 
  • Take control of the camera with the built-in Pro Controls, including controls that are exclusive to a computational camera: Frames to Merge and Merge Method. These may be intimidating for beginners, but with Project Indigo, you can try them for free, and nothing will break—you can always reset the settings to ‘Auto’ and let the camera take back control. 
  • Go to the Indigo Labs page and play with the latest innovations our team can offer. These are only available on mobile via Indigo! 
  • Be patient! Project Indigo is doing a lot of heavy lifting under the hood, and it will reward you with great photos. In return, it may ask you for a bit of time to set up captures when needed, and to wait a few seconds for the image processing to finish. 

 

Sending feedback 

Please try the app and share feedback in this community forum thread. If you report a problem you encountered, it would help to include details like which device you are running Project Indigo on, what kind of scene you were trying to capture, what you were trying to achieve with the camera, and as much information as possible about what you like or do not like about the resulting photo quality. Our team will continually monitor this thread to track issues and improve future experiences.  

 

To improve the performance and results of Project Indigo, it is important that examples of images that do not meet your expectations are forwarded to the team via your report.  A large variety of file formats are allowed as attachments in these forum posts. The best option is to attach your image's raw file directly to your feedback post. Note that there is a 50 MB limit on an attachment's file size. If your raw file is too large to attach, the best option is to share the file via a file-sharing service (Dropbox or similar) and then share the link in your feedback post. Thank you for continuing to provide feedback on the Project Indigo camera! 

 

Boris Ajdin: Product Manager, NextCam 
 
Posted by: 

 

      354 replies

      Show previous replies
      B
      Adobe Employee
      BorisTheBlade
      Adobe Employee
      October 16, 2025

      Hello everyone - thank you for your patience while you wait for the iPhone 17 support. We are working hard on it, and we have run into some issues, especially with the front camera. Some of them we flagged to Apple, who have made a fix and will ship it with iOS 26.1. Sadly, that means we need to consider disabling the front camera in Indigo until that version of iOS is shipped. In the meantime, we have made some improvements with iOS 26 compatibility on all devices. We hope to release an updated version which runs on rear iPhone 17-series cameras in a few days.

        M
        Moonboots22
        Participating Frequently
        October 16, 2025

        Boris - with the new update, will the front camera be disabled only on iPhone 17, or will that happen on older devices too?

        B
        Adobe Employee
        BorisTheBlade
        Adobe Employee
        October 16, 2025
        quote

        Boris - with the new update, will the front camera be disabled only on iPhone 17, or will that happen on older devices too?


        By @Moonboots22

        We are considering it for 17-series only. Other devices seem to work just fine.

        M
        Moonboots22
        Participating Frequently
        October 14, 2025

        Boris - am I correct in saying that the Night Mode with Merge & Align set to a single frame essentially operates in a way somewhat similar to Halide's popular "Process Zero", but with Project Indigo flavor on the processed JPEG vs. whatever light processing Halide does on the Bayer Raw file?

        B
        Adobe Employee
        BorisTheBlade
        Adobe Employee
        October 14, 2025
        quote

        Boris - am I correct in saying that the Night Mode with Merge & Align set to a single frame essentially operates in a way somewhat similar to Halide's popular "Process Zero", but with Project Indigo flavor on the processed JPEG vs. whatever light processing Halide does on the Bayer Raw file?


        By @Moonboots22

        If you manually select to capture only 1 frame, then yes, there will be no "computational raw DNG" - there is only one raw frame captured and stored. We still run our look after that to define the tone and color, as well as sharpening and denoising parameters, and those will be used to generate the JPEG, but the raw will be a pure single-frame raw.

        P
        powerful_Elixir5E29
        Participating Frequently
        October 13, 2025

        @BorisTheBlade Hello! I would like to request a feature which i think the team is capable of adding. That is using the aligning and merging algorithm from super res zoom for night modw like in google camera which improved detail and clarity in daylight vs just HDR+ which would be appreciated. Thank you!

        B
        Adobe Employee
        BorisTheBlade
        Adobe Employee
        October 13, 2025
        quote

        @BorisTheBlade Hello! I would like to request a feature which i think the team is capable of adding. That is using the aligning and merging algorithm from super res zoom for night modw like in google camera which improved detail and clarity in daylight vs just HDR+ which would be appreciated. Thank you!


        By @powerful_Elixir5E29

        Sorry, I am not sure I understand... can you elaborate?

        P
        powerful_Elixir5E29
        Participating Frequently
        October 13, 2025

        Yes. Indigo uses computational stacking to reduce noise like in google camera hdr+ mode. Marc Levoy and the google team have released a paper for night sight and night sight is different from hdr+ in that it uses the google super res zoom align and merge to merge the frames so it offers better resolution compared to hdr+ so using night sight in daylight on pixel devices offered improved detail and resolution vs using hdr+ mode. So if indigo is using similar algorithm to hdr+ which i think it is then can you integrate the super res zoom algorithm align and merge into the night mode to improve image clarity,resolution in daylight when using the night mode?

        ?
        ????????_4983
        Participating Frequently
        October 13, 2025

        @BorisTheBlade Can you make the night mode have more agressive predefined looks like gcam had with its night sight which looked really bright and vivid? I find indigo night mode to produce very clean results but as soon as there is very low light when i edit the raw in lightroom and bring up the shadows i loose color detail and sometimes it is noisier than expected. Also will there be improvements to the super res zoom algorithm soon meaning solving the misalignmnents when there are moving subjects or leaves or foliage and detail improvements in all corners of the image even if there is subject motion? Thank you!

        B
        Adobe Employee
        BorisTheBlade
        Adobe Employee
        October 13, 2025
        quote

        @BorisTheBlade Can you make the night mode have more agressive predefined looks like gcam had with its night sight which looked really bright and vivid? I find indigo night mode to produce very clean results but as soon as there is very low light when i edit the raw in lightroom and bring up the shadows i loose color detail and sometimes it is noisier than expected. Also will there be improvements to the super res zoom algorithm soon meaning solving the misalignmnents when there are moving subjects or leaves or foliage and detail improvements in all corners of the image even if there is subject motion? Thank you!


        By @????????_4983

        Any updates to the look, including adding new looks, are time-involving - we definitely need to test on tons of images, and sometimes we need a lot of images while developing these new looks. We are indeed working on various look improvements, so please stay tuned. Super-resolution is a bit easier in that regard since there are fewer use-cases we need to test for, so we'll keep improving it over time.

        I
        Incredible_Everglow8050
        Participant
        October 13, 2025

        Also with the latest iOS version with my iPhone 14pro, I still cannot import all my dng files in Linux Darktable latest version. I can however after the 'conversion' via Adobe DNG converter. 

        karend8167956
        karend8167956
        Participant
        October 13, 2025

        Loving this app, it's so much better for sunrises than the native photo app. It's way better for workflow, and I really appreciate you guys adding the dedicated folder in photos.  One feature I'm really missing, I could really use a level and grid lines so I can get my sunrise photos level to the horizon and centered!

          M
          Moonboots22
          Participating Frequently
          October 13, 2025

          This already exists! Up on the top bar next to where the DNG+JPEG menu is, swipe left on the histogram and it will bring up another taskbar that has timer, level, grid, overexposure warning (zebra stripes), and the settings menu.

            A
            adi.kamath
            Participant
            October 13, 2025

            Any updates on the 17 lineup Boris? Just checking. An ETA would be great! Waiting since I got the phone!!

              A
              adi.kamath
              Participant
              October 16, 2025

              @BorisTheBlade pretty please? 🙂

              G
              georgeb73469922
              Inspiring
              October 10, 2025

              I shot this with the 1X (24mm eq.) camera on the iPhone 16 Pro with Project Indigo. This is a deep crop of the image, straight out of the camera with no editing whatsoever. I've attached the file, in case you might want to examine it in PS/LR. Am I pleasantly anticipating Indigo for iPhone 17 Pro? Oh my - am I! 

               

               

                P
                PavelVishniakov
                Participant
                October 10, 2025

                The last update 1.0.4) has broken the ability to launch Indigo from the lock screen. When I try to do it now, it gives me a black screen with no controls and the only way to fix it is to lock the phone, unlock it again and launch Indigo "normally".

                B
                Adobe Employee
                BorisTheBlade
                Adobe Employee
                October 14, 2025
                quote

                The last update 1.0.4) has broken the ability to launch Indigo from the lock screen. When I try to do it now, it gives me a black screen with no controls and the only way to fix it is to lock the phone, unlock it again and launch Indigo "normally".


                By @PavelVishniakov

                Hi Pavel - sorry to hear that. We are unable to reproduce this though... can you share more information with us, such as which device and which OS version you are running? Thank you.

                P
                PavelVishniakov
                Participant
                October 21, 2025

                Hi Boris,

                I'm running iOS 26.0.1 on iPhone 16 Pro. I've tried to retproduce this issue recently, but I couldn't reproduce it as well. Seems like it was either a very unique combination of factors or a random glitch.

                  M
                  Moonboots22
                  Participating Frequently
                  October 9, 2025

                  Boris - you've mentioned in the past how the team has (rightly) turned its eyes to iOS26. Some of your posts and the app release notes have indicated that iOS26 has offered improved image quality, focus, etc.

                   

                  As an iOS18 holdover for other reasons (stability, some of the Bluetooth/Apple Car Play issues in the release build), are you able to articulate exactly how (and maybe why) iOS26 on a singular device (iPhone 16 Pro in my case) would improve through a major software release like this? Is focus the main improvement, or are there other significant improvements along the image pipeline that affected what the Adobe team was able to do?

                    A
                    andre_2260
                    Participating Frequently
                    October 10, 2025

                    of course I'm not Boris! but one thing mentioned by him were quality improvements around the pipeline and something with a lilac stitch if edited in apple photos. 🙂 

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