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kindra_0420
Participant
October 10, 2024

P: Photos Washed Out with New iPhone

  • October 10, 2024
  • 21 replies
  • 8492 views

I'm feeling discouraged, as purchasing a new phone is a big expense, and now I have a problem I can't fix (yes I've called Adobe). With photos taken with my new iPhone 16, after automatically importing in the Lightroom app, when clicked on, the photo changes without being prompted to do so. A twirling icon pops up and voilà the image becomes washed out, and ruined. When I look at the image in my iPhone library it's fine. I've tried everything.....called adobe, painstainingly combed through settings...even went to AT&T just in case they could help me. The problem is we PAY for Lightroom and Adobe customer service is not helping. 

    21 replies

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    C
    Community Manager
    Charlie.DCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    December 3, 2024

    Hello @Julien23866590xre9 

    A forum moderator moved the separate conversation between the user "???????_3892" and Shivani to this authoritative thread.  Shivani did not realize this is a know issue, otherwise I'm sure the post would have been merged then.

     

    IOW, you can ignore Shivani's message.  

      J
      Julien23866590xre9
      Participating Frequently
      December 2, 2024

      I don't understand this.
      A while ago you said that the problem had been identified and passed on to Apple, who were supposed to fix it.
      And now you're asking us for more details...
      The problem is on iPhone and iPad.
      On Raw and Heif.
      All image sizes.
      Enough storage on iPhone. And application uninstalled and reinstalled several times

       

      C
      Community Manager
      Charlie.DCommunity Manager
      Community Manager
      November 19, 2024

      Hello @luis_4754 

       

      You are right in that any raw image from any modern iPhone with a larger camera sensor needs processing to display.  They way the native Photos.app chooses to render such raw images, and the way Adobe Lightroom with it's Adobe Color profile chooses to render the same images sometimes differ.  When these images are viewed in the Device tab, iOS provides the intial image display until Lightroom's underlying Camera Raw technology takes over, and there can be a visible "pop" as the image details are fully realized/displayed.  You can even see this occur in certain cases just within the Photos.app, though perhaps the transition may be smoother.

       

      Usually the Adobe Color profile appearance for raw images is closer to iOS Photos.app than what is currently seen with the latest iOS.  All I know is our Developers have reached out to Apple about this.

      L
      luis_4754
      Participant
      November 19, 2024

      Hey Charlie, Thanks for all the help but this is also a problem for my iPhone 13 Pro Max and my IPhone 16 pro max are having the exact same issue washing out the photos when uploaded. Maybe it's all Pro Max iPhones dealing with this? Maybe just a problem with the app in terral and has nothing to do with just the iPhone 16...

      Rick.Williams
      Rick.Williams
      Known Participant
      November 13, 2024

      Honestly, based on what I see here, there is no real bug. RAW photos typically have a jpeg embedded in them. ProRaw is no different. What you see in Apple Photos when you look at a ProRaw is that embedded JPEG, until you edit it. This looks like Lightroom is showing that until it fully loads the RAW. 

      As a test, go into Apple Photos on MacOS, select RAW from the media types listing on the left so you only see your ProRaw files. Go into edit mode. Use the arrow keys to switch back and forth between photos. You will be able to see it load the JPEG preview then switch to the Raw file. Sometimes its subtle sometimes its more obvious. 

      The difference is how Adobe and Apple process those raw files. Personally I just setup a preset that sets the profile to Apple ProRaw, auto tones the image, puts texture at 20, and sharpness at 60. That gives me a good starting point. Then in settings I have it set to auto apply that preset to Raw files, since the vast majority of Raw files I take are from the iPhone these days.

       

      The main thing to remember is that when you are looking at a ProRaw file in Apple Photos you are very rarely actually looking at the RAW. You are viewing a JPEG preview of an auto processed RAW. I hope that makes sense.

      C
      Community Manager
      Charlie.DCommunity Manager
      Community Manager
      November 13, 2024

      An update: we have communicated this issue to Apple, and a fix should come from a future iOS 18.x update.  We don't have a specific date or iOS version from Apple to share.

       

      In the meantime, the LR iOS mid-December release will correct the appearance of any affected image.  Our developers found a way to work around the issue of iPhone 16 images having the wrong gamma curve and will apply a fix when reading them into Lightroom/ACR to use the gamma curve that Apple is actually using to render them.  Apple will still fix the issue cause in a future OS release, and we don't know exactly when, but at that point the workaround here won't be applied anymore due to the fixed content of the file from the camera app.  Our workaround will remain in place for previously-captured iPhone 16 photos.

        H
        hugo_3335
        Participant
        November 13, 2024

        Taking photos on ios18 iphone 16 pro in raw format, but everytime I try to open one of these photos in lightroom mobile it appears as expected and then after a second there's a strange filter applied automatically. It ruins the quality of the photo. How do you stop this from happening so I can edit the file as intended?

        thanks!!

         

        C
        Community Manager
        Charlie.DCommunity Manager
        Community Manager
        November 5, 2024

        I am converting this post to a bug and setting to "Acknowledged" to reflect that the team is investigating

          S
          ssarahphoto
          Participant
          November 2, 2024

          This is happening to me to with my iphone 16 pro and I'm about ready to SCREAM!!! It's destroying all of my photos!!! Surly adobe and Apple will fix this!??? I don't know what to do! 

            A
            Arlo.the.retriever
            Participant
            October 10, 2024

            I just recently got the iPhone 16 pro. When I take photos on my iPhone and go into the Lightroom app, once I select on a photo, it automatically changes the quality and color of photo. How do I fix this? 

              J
              Julien23866590xre9
              Participating Frequently
              October 21, 2024

              I have the same issue and Adobe doesn't want to deal with it 🤬

                O
                oskar_8805
                Participant
                October 30, 2024

                Hi, I'm facing the same issue. Only since switching to my new iPhone 16 Pro Max. Posting a screen recording here of what happens. Any help?😅

                  O
                  oskar_8805
                  Participant
                  October 30, 2024

                  I should also add, that when I import photos that were taken by someone else on an earlier iPhone model, this doesn't happen, so it seems to be a compatibility issue between the new model's camera and LR.

                  C
                  Community Manager
                  Charlie.DCommunity Manager
                  Community Manager
                  October 30, 2024

                  Hello @oskar_8805 

                  Thanks for attaching a screen recording--very helpful!

                   

                  We recently released support for the new iPhone 16 devices with the recent v10.0 app update.  Are you updated to the latest version of the app?  Please open the LR Mobile iPhone app listing to see if an update is available.

                   

                  Next, if you open that photo again, and then open Edit and scroll to the right to select Profiles, what Profile is applied to your iPhone 16 photos?

                   

                  In the LR Mobile app Settings > Import, what is selected under Raw Default Settings?  (Adobe Default is the default and should work fine.  I just want to make sure you don't have some other custom profile applied that doesn't work well for iPhone.

                  D
                  Douglas291457447gwc
                  Participant
                  October 25, 2024

                  I too am facing this problem. However the washed out photos are happening on images that I have edited on the computer.  When I veiw the images on the mobile app (v10.0) they are slightly overexposed and have less contrast. I have exported these photos and sent them to my computer to check that its not due to a difference in screen calibration and it is not as they are still showing washed out.

                   

                  I completely agree with you last comment about adobe. I have had issues with adobe for months which their team has been unable to resolve.

                    C
                    Community Manager
                    Charlie.DCommunity Manager
                    Community Manager
                    October 26, 2024

                    @Douglas291457447gwc I cannot reproduce such trouble.  Are you updated to the latest apps for both mobile and desktop?  LR Mobile 10.0 is pretty recent but what about LR on your computer?

                    Sharing a screen recording showing us what you see may help. Please show image info, or edit settings if possible.

                    Also sharing more info about the images, what camera they came from etc may help.  

                     

                    Did you enabled HDR for these images?  What model exactly is your mobile device?

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