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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
  • 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 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: 

 

      344 replies

      Show previous replies
      N
      nhan_8084
      Participating Frequently
      July 9, 2025

      @BorisTheBlade the 1x shot against the sun seems to have edge alisasing of some sort, it's razor edge and lines.  One crop view is as is when imported to lightroom and the other is with adjustments.  I am not sure if this is caused by missed focus, missalignment, or aliasing as I mentioned.

      B
      Adobe Employee
      BorisTheBlade
      Adobe Employee
      July 10, 2025
      quote

      @BorisTheBlade the 1x shot against the sun seems to have edge alisasing of some sort, it's razor edge and lines.  One crop view is as is when imported to lightroom and the other is with adjustments.  I am not sure if this is caused by missed focus, missalignment, or aliasing as I mentioned.


      By @nhan_8084

      Hello - thank you for reporting this. We have some suspicions what this may be, but would need a DNG to confirm. Are you able to share it (via DropBox, Google Drive, or similar)? Thank you for continuing to use Indigo and providing feedback!

      N
      nhan_8084
      Participating Frequently
      July 10, 2025

      I can if I have the dng via pc.  Ill try to get it somehow!

        V
        Vitor_Pivetta3316
        New Participant
        July 9, 2025

        Hello, first of all, excellent project, really promising. I'd like to know if you plan to add some kind of "action" mode, because I notice that sometimes the photos I take of my animals come out blurry if they move. Again, thank you very much for the promising project!

        B
        Adobe Employee
        BorisTheBlade
        Adobe Employee
        July 9, 2025
        @Vitor_Pivetta3316 wrote:

        Hello, first of all, excellent project, really promising. I'd like to know if you plan to add some kind of "action" mode, because I notice that sometimes the photos I take of my animals come out blurry if they move. Again, thank you very much for the promising project!

         

        Hello Vitor - thank you for your interest in Indigo and your feedback. We will look into ways to add ability in Indigo to capture more use-cases, such as fast action. In the mean-time, what you can try is to use Pro controls by:

        1. Reducing the shutter speed, while keeping the ISO automatic.
        2. Reducing the number of frames captured (Night mode-only) to see if that makes it better for your needs. If you are capturing in very bright enviroment, you can make the number of frames all the way down to 1.
        D
        deejayceejay_1426
        New Participant
        July 9, 2025

        •  

          Hi! Is this normal in night photography? If it's not is there a work around? It's my first time using the app to take photos at night time

        B
        Adobe Employee
        BorisTheBlade
        Adobe Employee
        July 9, 2025
        quote

        Hi! Is this normal in night photography? If it's not is there a work around? It's my first time using the app to take photos at night time


        By @deejayceejay_1426

        Hello - thank you for trying Indigo and reporting your experience. I have a few questions regarding the problem you experienced:

        • Did you capture the scene in Night mode or Photo mode?
        • Did you use Indigo in auto mode, or did you set some parameters manually with Pro controls?
        • Was the camera mostly static (handheld or tripod), or was it moving a bit?

         

        If you are able to share DNGs with us that would help a great deal. Direct DNG sharing is unfortunately not working at the moment, but you could share via DropBox, Google Drive or similar.

         

        Thank you for triaging this issue with us!

        F
        FitzFoto12089247
        Inspiring
        July 9, 2025

        Photo 1 using iPhone 16 Pro native Camera app @ 5 X, cropped in Photos to the same size (roughly) as ...

        Photo 2 using Indigo @ 10X.

         

        The differences are obvious, with the native app giving more accurate colour rendition, but less dynamic range.

        B
        Adobe Employee
        BorisTheBlade
        Adobe Employee
        July 9, 2025
        quote

        Photo 1 using iPhone 16 Pro native Camera app @ 5 X, cropped in Photos to the same size (roughly) as ...

        Photo 2 using Indigo @ 10X.

         

        The differences are obvious, with the native app giving more accurate colour rendition, but less dynamic range.


        By @FitzFoto12089247

        Thank you for reporting your findings. I have a question though: why did you decide to capture at 5x with the native camera and 10x with Indigo? If you use 10x for both cameras, how do the results compare then? Also, if you don't mind sharing which capture mode you used in Indigo (Photo or Night), and whether you had any Pro Controls active or was it in full auto mode?

        N
        nhan_8084
        Participating Frequently
        July 10, 2025

        My guess is that maybe he thinks that 5x native is optical will give him better details vs apple's digital crop could do some processing, to do versus indigo's 10x SR.  Either way far superior with Indigo's SR.

        F
        frankherzog
        Participating Frequently
        July 8, 2025

        I've done virtually everything to see if Indigo is REALLY that good and each experience comes back with a resounding YES, it IS that good!  Bird photography has eluded me for years.  Taken  today with Indigo at 10X on a 16 pro max.   I'm done testing.

          C
          chrisd40442477
          Participating Frequently
          July 8, 2025

          Good morning.   Very optimistic having gone thru my first attempts using Indigo.  Problem I'm having.  I do see DNG+RAW in the upper left hand corner of the screen. BUT, I don't see any way to access the raw file.  Everything I shoot is a jpg only?

          mopperle
          mopperle
          Inspiring
          July 8, 2025

          Has been asked and answered already many times. Adobe is currently working on a solution to make dng only available.

          For the moment, read this article with many more infos about Indigo and it also describes a workaround:
          https://gregbenzphotography.com/photography-reviews/project-indigo-the-best-camera-app-for-smart-phones/

          J
          Jon_Shrago4851
          New Participant
          July 8, 2025

          I adore the app - shots with it are more vibrant, clearer, nicer contrast and the out of focus areas are far less distracting. Indigo shots feel better to me.

          However I'm pretty sure there is a problem with focusing. Particularly at distances close to minimum I've really struggled to get the plane of focus. One example I used the 5x lens on stock camera - focused no problem. The 5x on Indigo didn't focus and couldn't even get close on manual - it was as if the two apps were using different lenses with different capabilities.

           

          So - autofocus seems inaccurate on most lenses.

          At close range, it can even lack the ability to focus at lengths the stock app manages.

          B
          Adobe Employee
          BorisTheBlade
          Adobe Employee
          July 9, 2025

          Hello Jon - thank you for trying out Indigo and for providing feedback. Regarding focusing, the native camera app always runs what they call a "fusion camera", i.e., all 3 cameras are active at all times. That way, if they detect that the minimum focus distance for a lens is too long, they automatically switch the lens under the hood. A simple way to test that is to do the following: change the lens to 5x, move close to your target object (say, to 30cm/1ft), capture a photo, then in Apple Photos inspect the image metadata. It should say "Fusion camera" and right next to it it will say 24mm for focal length (i.e., the 1x lens), while below the focal length will be displayed as 120mm (i.e., the 5x lens). The camera used 1x lens and cropped it to match the 5x FOV without informing the user at capture time.

          Indigo can only run one camera at the time, so we cannot do this kind of switching seamlessly, which is why we suggest Macro mode to users once we detect that the subject is too close.

          P
          photochem62
          New Participant
          July 7, 2025

          Feature request: Add an on/off toggle for the "Zero Shutter Lag" feature in "Photo Mode." Should save some battery power; constant pre-focusing Is not needed for static scenes. 

          Reference the "Pre-AF" function in Sony Alpha 7/9 Series cameras. 

          Thanks and keep up the great work. 

          B
          Adobe Employee
          BorisTheBlade
          Adobe Employee
          July 8, 2025

          Hello - thank you for trying Indigo and for your suggestion. We will consider your feature request for a future version of the app.

          rus5
          rus5
          Known Participant
          July 7, 2025

          My previous post on this got hijacked.  Let me try again:

           

          Just downloaded and trying to understand PI.  The FAQ Adobe provides is extremely sparce and there's little info on-line that I can find (a couple of not-too-great videos is all so far).  So two really basic questions in case anyone knows the answers (using iPhone 16 Pro Max):

          1) why do all my photos no matter what and I how I shoot them always show a red "HDR" with a white bar though it at the top ?  This shows no matter how I have my display brightness or anything else set.

          2) the round circle at the bottom left is supposed to show the numbe of photos being processed according to the live "tip" but it's never anything but "1".  Why is it always only "1".

          3) sometimes there is a round icon at the top left with a camrea in it and a partial white or red circle around it.  Does anyone know what that means ?

          Thanks !  Russ

          B
          Adobe Employee
          BorisTheBlade
          Adobe Employee
          July 8, 2025

          Hi Russ - thank you for trying Indigo and for reaching out on the forum. I'll try to answer your questions here:

          1. This happens when the device doesn't have enough "headroom" to display HDR content. There can be several causes to this, such as being in bright light environments (outdoors), being in low-power mode, device overheating, etc.
          2. Would you mind sharing which device you are running Indigo on? Also, are you capturing in Photo mode or are all your captures in Night mode? Photo mode allows multiple shots to be queued, while Night mode can only be done one at a time. One thing you can try is to kill the app and restart and see if that changes the number. 
          3. Are you able to post a screenshot of this behavior? I am not sure I know what this is as I've never seen it before.
          stev_evo007
          stev_evo007
          New Participant
          July 10, 2025

          Do know if the other post works... 

          Hello, I've noticed the red HDR and wondered what it was. Today I thought about something, I usually have the"Reduce White Point" turned off because I enjoy that view but today I turned it off and the red HDR was gone and when viewing HDR images I now see them in full HDR! So happy! HDR images here we go!!

           
           
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          J
          jean-michel_3747
          New Participant
          July 7, 2025

          Hi, I use Pi with a iPhone 15 Pro, and the pictures are JPG+DNG.  It works fine, but when I try to download the files (to process them on a computer and save space) I can get only the jpg file, not the DNG. I used both commands "Export original without modifications" and "download to Files", and get only the jpg version. How come ? What did I do wrong ?

          Thank you in advance,

          Jean-Michel

          Thank you in advance

          B
          Adobe Employee
          BorisTheBlade
          Adobe Employee
          July 8, 2025

          Hello Jean-Michel - thank you for trying Indigo and for reaching out. Getting the DNG is a bit involved as iOS natively prioritizes JPEGs. You can find very nice instructions for how to get the DNG here: https://gregbenzphotography.com/photography-reviews/project-indigo-the-best-camera-app-for-smart-phones/

          J
          jean-michel_3747
          New Participant
          July 14, 2025
          Boris, thank you for directing me to this gregbenz page, with methods to export DNG files, I tried it and it works. A bit time consuming, but it works. And then you can post process the DNG file on a computer with a decent screen, large enough to see what you’re doing, not just the tiny iPhone screen.I first import the pictures in LR on the iPhone, then export them, as DNG files, to Files, where Files is an external SSD. You can use batch processing at every stage, so it doesn’t take such a long time.Thanks again, jean Michel 


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