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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
  • 345 replies
  • 224988 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: 

 

      345 replies

      Show previous replies
      photopoeth
      photopoeth
      Inspiring
      June 28, 2025

      Some major UI issues with a non MAX screen (here iPhone 14 Pro):

      First, the button for front/back cam covers the button for the highest zoom level.

      Secondly, there is too little space at the top for the middle display. As you can see on the first screenshot: as long as I scroll to the second "page" and haven't let go yet, the self-timer button is visible. As soon as I let go (second screenshot), the timer button is no longer visible.

      In my opinion, both problems can be easily solved:

      1. There would still be space to the left of the zoom buttons so that they could all slide to the left.

      2. The button at the top left (image format) would not need to be nearly as large. It takes up a ton of screen real estate and guess how often I did use it? Answer: never. Maybe it's just me, but having only the option to choose between two options probably isn't used that often by the majority of users. It's different in the Standard Cam where you can choose beween JPG, HEIF, RAW-12 and RAW-max. So why is it there at such a prominent spot eating up that much real estate?
      The button at the top right is unnecessary because you can already set it at the bottom. I could do without it and, on the contrary, find it confusing because there are two options for switching.

       

      Great approach for a camera app - thanks for that! If you can get the overheating problems under control, it would really be a great choice as a standard camera. Unfortunately, I only use it very selectively at the moment. More often in night mode, where the overheating has not yet occurred, but in photo mode I think twice before starting the app.


      Here are the screenshots I've mentioned:

       

      B
      Adobe Employee
      BorisTheBlade
      Adobe Employee
      July 8, 2025

      Hello - thank you for reporting these issues. I believe you have some Accessibility features turned on, specifically Display & Text Size -> Button Shapes. If you disable that, does the UI look and feel improve? It also looks like you have larger text and or Display size enabled. Project Indigo currently doesn't react well to various combinations of Accessibility features being turned on. We will be working on these in future updates, but for the time being turning as many off is the best way to get Indigo to look and feel as intended.

      E
      Ed5E57
      Participating Frequently
      July 9, 2025
      That doesn’t fix anything on my iPhone 14 Pro
      N
      nhan_8084
      Participating Frequently
      June 27, 2025

      @BorisTheBlade I and others have probably mentioned this before but could we get a raw dng file(not only separated from the jpeg embedded), but also have the BARE MINIMAL if not no noise reduction (both luma and chroma), and no sharpening of any sorts added?  It is fine to have stacked raw like google camera for better natural noise reduction, but Indigo is just so great of an app to apply any post processing to the raws!  I really really hope the team prioritizes this for the upcoming update as I can't see it being a challenge at all to not apply processing to it.

        P
        peterpreager@rogers.com
        Participating Frequently
        June 27, 2025

        I also found that when you upload to LR, if indeed it is a dng file and the Indigo profile is there, when you select another profile, say adaptive color, and then want to swith back to the Indigo profile it is not there.

        B
        Adobe Employee
        BorisTheBlade
        Adobe Employee
        June 27, 2025

        Hi Peter - thank you for reporting this. We are aware of the problem and will be working with Lightroom on fixing it.

        P
        peterpreager@rogers.com
        Participating Frequently
        June 27, 2025

        I am not sure about the consistency of sharing an image with LR. While taking a picture of the same subject maybe 5 minutes apart and, in both cases, with dng and jpg selected, one image relects the dng file and the Indigo Profile and the associated file size (14 m in my case), the second image only reflects the jpg file and no Indigo profile.

        Am I doing something wrong?

        B
        Adobe Employee
        BorisTheBlade
        Adobe Employee
        June 27, 2025

        Peter - thank you for trying Indigo, and for sharing your feedback. I am not sure I understand what your use case is and what you are trying to do/achieve. May I ask you to explain your use case again? Thank you.

        T
        Teragion
        New Participant
        June 27, 2025

        Thank you so much for developing this amazing app! After some simple tests, I found that the images captured by project indigo has so much finer detail and dynamic range than most other camera apps, making me eager to take only my phone instead of my cameras for a photo walk. However, there is a big obstacle for me.

        As I own only an iPhone sold in Japan and living in Japan, it produces a loud shutter sound when photo is taken as per legal regulations (with privacy concerns). However, this appears disastrous for apps like Project Indigo as it capture a constant stream of images as soon as it is launched, render it unusable in any public settings even if I am not attempting to take any image violating others’ privacy. (As the noise is unbearable)

        My suggestion is that, as it essentially captures a stream of images and selectively save frames, it is analogous to the function of capturing a video and record some interesting frames while recording using the camera button aside to the record button in the Apple’s stock camera app. Might there be a way to also treat project indigo’s image stream as a video capture thus only play sound when recording starts and ends?

        B
        Adobe Employee
        BorisTheBlade
        Adobe Employee
        June 27, 2025

        Hello - thank you for trying Indigo and for your message. We appreciate the inconvenience of trying to use the app while the shutter sound is continuously playing. We are looking into solutions for this together with Apple and will share an update as soon as we can.

        Regarding your question about video, technically it is possible to use a short video stream instead of raw frames. However, that is likely to reduce the resulting image quality. We are hoping that we can resolve the shutter sound issue with Apple such that our customers in Japan can start using Indigo to its fullest.

        D
        DingMac
        New Participant
        June 26, 2025

        Brill new camera app, I find my iPhone Pro Max 15 gets really, really hot and unstable. A heatsink mod needed? LOL. ANYWAY... my joint RAW+Jpeg / Jpeg+RAW shots end up in Photos on my iMac and I cannot figure out getting the RAW file into Lightroom Classic. Please, how is this done? Someone please help! The export-unchanged original- save in folder X  gets me a jpeg or a tiff file but I cannot get a RAW file to play with?

        B
        Adobe Employee
        BorisTheBlade
        Adobe Employee
        June 26, 2025

        Hello - thank you for trying Indigo and for your feedback. To get raw files to Lightroom Classic, Greg Benz has nicely listed options for how to get the files onto your machine (towards the bottom of the page): https://gregbenzphotography.com/photography-reviews/project-indigo-the-best-camera-app-for-smart-phones/

        We will work on enabling DNG-only capture in a future update which will help mitigate this issue.

          M
          Moonboots22
          Participating Frequently
          June 26, 2025

          When do you anticipate a second release that may address the overheating issue? Fixing that alone would make this a candidate as the preferred overall camera app on iPhone. I have a 16 Pro on the latest stable update but do get overheating issues with this.

           

          I've been most impressed with the superzoom, and baked in reflection removal/AI denoise options. This shows tons of promise!

          B
          Adobe Employee
          BorisTheBlade
          Adobe Employee
          June 26, 2025

          Hello - thank you for reaching out. We are happy you are enjoying Indigo, and are working hard to help alleviate the overheating issues. A new version with improvements on that front is coming shortly. 

            E
            Eli Johanson
            Participating Frequently
            June 26, 2025

            Sharing photos taken in Indigo. Shot in RAW format, edited in Adobe Camera Raw. In my opinion, the most valuable feature of the Indigo app is its 10x digital zoom. Photos taken with the standard 1x lens are barely different from the unprocessed RAW files. I use the Fjorden Camera app, and the results are practically indistinguishable.

            Like many others here on the forum, I have a Japanese iPhone 15 Pro Max. The constant shutter sound is really annoying.

            B
            Adobe Employee
            BorisTheBlade
            Adobe Employee
            June 26, 2025
            quote

            Sharing photos taken in Indigo. Shot in RAW format, edited in Adobe Camera Raw. In my opinion, the most valuable feature of the Indigo app is its 10x digital zoom. Photos taken with the standard 1x lens are barely different from the unprocessed RAW files. I use the Fjorden Camera app, and the results are practically indistinguishable.

            Like many others here on the forum, I have a Japanese iPhone 15 Pro Max. The constant shutter sound is really annoying.

            By @Eli Johanson

            Hello Eli - thank you for trying Indigo, and for providing your feedback. I wanted to follow up with you regarding the 1x lens captures. You mentioned that in your use cases they are pretty much the same as other 3rd party apps, e.g., Fjorden. Can you add more details about your use cases: are you typically capturing in bright daylight, or do you also capture in darker or night conditions? Also, do you ever use a tripod for your captures? Finally, the same technology that provides the 10x image quality you like is used for 2x images: have you noticed anything with 2x captures which you like, or not really?

            Regarding the shutter sound, unfortunately that is how iOS handles the situation when camera apps request raw frames, which Indigo does continuously while running the viewfinder. We are working with Apple on mitigating this issue.

              B
              Adobe Employee
              BorisTheBlade
              Adobe Employee
              June 27, 2025

              Dubai photos shot in basic RAW SDR. Here are the settings. Used Indigo with default HDR settings. The forest shot isn't artistic - just wanted to show my wife how our woods look after rain


              Thank you for sharing your settings screenshot. This looks like a single-frame DNG, with little post-processing. It can work nicely in bright daylight conditions, especially when the dynamic range of the scene is limited. But in low-light or in higher dynamic range scenes it may struggle.

              For the record, you can get a similar result with Indigo: if you open Pro Controls in Night mode, the last Pro Control allows you to set the number of frames to a low number, or even to a single frame. Note however that this can interfere with features like super-resolution zoom, and will likely reduce the overall image quality.

              E
              Ed5E57
              Participating Frequently
              June 26, 2025

              I'm on a iPhone 14 Pro.  The app is causing the phone to overheat which then causes it to crash. 

              B
              Adobe Employee
              BorisTheBlade
              Adobe Employee
              June 26, 2025

              Hello - thank you for trying Indigo and for providing your feedback about the overheating issues. We are hard at work to minimize instances of overheating and will be releasing an updated version of the app soon. Once it is out we hope you will give it a spin and let us know whether this new version has indeed helped with overheating.

              E
              Ed5E57
              Participating Frequently
              June 26, 2025
              I will and thank you. It is a very interesting app. One other question is that I doesn’t seem to use the x1 proraw raw 48MP. Will it in the future?

              Get Outlook for iOS<>
              F
              frankherzog
              Participating Frequently
              June 25, 2025

              My question is simple: how are you going to set up your Indigo camera for 4th of July fireworks?

               

              Frank H. 

              B
              Adobe Employee
              BorisTheBlade
              Adobe Employee
              June 25, 2025

              Hi Frank - thank you for reaching out with this question. Our resident photographer, Florian Kainz (who captured many images from the Project Indigo blog) helped me collect best practices for capturing fireworks. Hope you get to try it out and can let us know how the event went.

              • Strong recommendation to use a tripod for the whole event.
                • Frame the shot before or at the beginning of the show.
                • Consider using a Bluetooth remote to trigger the shutter.  That way you can watch the show and take pictures without constantly staring at your phone.
                • If you are adventurous, take a picture of the environment before or after the show, and later blend it with the fireworks shots using Photoshop.
              • To get sharp, low-noise images, use the 1× lens and find a spot from where the fireworks will fill most of the frame.
                • Avoid digital zooming.
              • Before the show starts, manually focus the camera on something “at infinity,” for example, a streetlight or the windows of a building a few hundred feet away.
                • Use the loupe to find the best focus setting.
                • On some iPhone models there’s a noticeable focus shift when the phone warms up, so it’s a good idea to let Indigo run for a minute or so before focusing the camera.
              • Use Night mode.
              • In Pro controls, use the following settings:
                • Lowest ISO setting (e.g. 50).
                • Set Frames to Merge to 1.
                • Set Merge Method to Long Exposure.
                • Set the shutter speed to Auto.
                • Set Exposure to somewhere between -1 and -2.
                • Set White balance with Temperature around 4000K and Tint 0, as this tends to produce pleasing colors.
              • Indigo’s AI look may brighten the background around the fireworks so much that it looks grainy.  You can fix this by opening the DNG file in Lightroom or Photoshop and manually adjusting Exposure, Shadows and Highlights.

               

                F
                frankherzog
                Participating Frequently
                June 25, 2025
                Great answer. Thank you!
                Frank

                Sent from my iPhone
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