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

  • May 23, 2025
  • 344 replies
  • 224964 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 thiProject 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: 

 

    344 replies

    Participating Frequently
    June 29, 2025

    @BorisTheBlade I took a before and after of the 2x and 10x super res as I saw the update changelog said super res day and night have better details, but I am seeing the same!  Also it is 90F currently, phone was in pocket, I was standing under shade, no more than 10 minutes after taking before and installing update, the 1.0.2 version gave me overheat.  I also noticed the 10x outdoor got very very shaky after that overheat message, and the viewfinder screen dimmed greatly!  Seems like it turned off eis or ois even!  The indoor also looks very bad compare to apple stock 10x zoom after the update.

    Participating Frequently
    June 29, 2025

    154 and 000 is version 1.0.1

    Participating Frequently
    June 29, 2025

    Tried the new updated version and while the heating issue and speed is somewhat improved it still makes the phone drain battery very fast when taking and processing photos and is still nowhere near google camera hdr+ level of efficiency and speed. I hope the team manages to fix those issues in the near future.

    New Participant
    June 29, 2025

    Hi I am using the app with a iphone 14 bought from South Korea. I dunno why but the shutter sound goes crazy as soon i open the app even though i didnt press the shutter to take a photo. Is it just me or is it normal?

    New Participant
    June 29, 2025

    Hello,

     

    I would like to report an issue that occurs when editing a picture taken with Project Indigo with the “Photos” app on IOS.

     

    When done editing a picture (Even just a simple crop or a clean up) it will come out with a red/green or blue layer applied on it.

     

    Examples of a picture before and after editing are attached.

    New Participant
    July 2, 2025

    I'm also getting the change of color after editing in photos. 

    Adobe Employee
    July 8, 2025

    Hello Matteo and Tom - thank you for reporting this issue. We are in touch with Apple on Apple Photos' support for Indigo-captured DNGs and hope we can resolve this problem soon.

    New Participant
    June 28, 2025

    Being able to focus manually is important sometimes in order to get the best possible quality. However, it's not easy to focus to the maximum precision while looking at the small screen of a phone. I would like to suggest that a zoomed in view is displayed while adjusting focus manually

    New Participant
    July 5, 2025

    This + focus peaking overlay would be amazing

    Adobe Employee
    July 8, 2025

    Hello - thank you for trying Project Indigo and providing feedback. You are able to turn on focus loupe by tapping on the little zoom icon left of the focus slider. If this is not a satisfactory solution, please feel free to provide suggestions for improvement and the team will take them into consideration.

    New Participant
    June 28, 2025

    Hello! This app is great, and I appreciate you guys taking feedback while improving the app. 

    I have a iPhone 16 Pro Max, and while testing the app, I noticed it makes my phone overheat. Quitting the app will let the phone cool down, but I hope you guys can fix this in a future update. 

    However thanks again from the Big Apple!

    New Participant
    June 28, 2025

    First of all, the camera is fantastic. It already has changed how I use the iOS camera. I did notice a bug with iOS 26 though. Seemingly on non SR pictures, a black bar is attached to vertical images. Another camera app I use Not boring camera, just had a bug fix for this issue. Attached are sample photos. One at 1x with PI, one at 2x SR with PI, and one 1x with Apple camera. 

    New Participant
    June 30, 2025

    Since it is a black bar added, I made a shortcut to crop the picture and delete the original. It checks if it is portrait or landscape and crops accordingly. Otherwise the application is fantastic! Shortcut link 

    New Participant
    June 28, 2025

    I captured 5 images and the app only saved one of them. I kept the app open while processing was taking place. iPhone 14. 

    Participating Frequently
    June 28, 2025
    Did it show the overheating warning. My 14 Pro does the same but often crashes the app as well

    Get Outlook for iOS<>
    photopoeth
    Inspiring
    June 28, 2025

    Here's my "wish list" for the future

    Since I take it for granted that you will get the problem of overheating under control, I asked myself what functions I would like to see in my future goto camera. I came up with three things - at least for now ;):

    1. It would be fantastic if you could optionally set the reference point for focus and the reference point for exposure separately. I love this feature in the ProCamera app, my current goto camera app. Here's a screenshot (1=focus, 2=exposure):

    2. Pls add the focus stacking feature ASAP.

    3. Please add a button to dim/brighten (max) the screen. What? Why? Glad you ask, here's the explanation:

    I think it's a common issue (especially on sunny days) when you're on a photo tour with your iPhone for a long time. You have 2 options: Either you dim the screen (then it gets less hot and uses less power), but then you can hardly see anything when taking photos. Or you can set the screen to bright, which quickly leads to overheating and a flat battery.

    Unfortunately, switching the brightness while taking photos is very cumbersome using the system tools. It would therefore be nice if there was such a button in the camera app.

    So you could leave the screen dimmed and only make it as bright as possible for a short time when needed and then immediately dim it again.

     

    Best regards and keep up the good work, Thomas

     

    Participating Frequently
    June 28, 2025
    I think #1 is already in the app

    Get Outlook for iOS<>
    photopoeth
    Inspiring
    June 28, 2025

    OK... and how would you activate this function to split the reference points for focus and exposure?

     

    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:

     

    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.

    Participating Frequently
    July 9, 2025
    That doesn’t fix anything on my iPhone 14 Pro