P: Introducing the Project Indigo camera app

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

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. 

• Download the app from the App Store. 
• Check out the Project Indigo FAQ, which is updated regularly with new explanations. 

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: 

[BorisTheBlade]

1. I was able to take 1s exposures of the night sky merged with differing number of frames. Impressive in terms of detail and noise! However, when I look at the "information" pop-up, it shows the 1s exposure, but it does not show how many frames were merged.  I think this is critical information.  

2. Star trails.  With my big cameras, I get great results by combining 40-50 30s exposures in post processing in LR/PS or StarStax.  Is there an intervelometer-type function in or planned to be in Indigo that would allow for automatic repetition of a 30 frame capture?  Doing it manually is problematic. 

By @Astrodon

Thank you for providing these suggestions. We are working on improving the Long Exposure captures overall, and will be rolling those updates out in upcoming releases. For astrophotography, it requires special processing in different modes (e.g., making star trails vs keeping stars static), which is also on the roadmap. Please stay tuned.

[nhan_8084]

@BorisTheBlade So I have some times to do what you asked earlier, and that is to process the Indigo raws to give you and your team a sense of how I want the jpegs to look SOOC.  All these are indoor shots which to me is more critical in terms of how to approach noise and sharpening.  I did not touch much in terms of exposure/shadows so do not pay attention much to it.  Noise reduction and sharpness is what I am mainly showing.

The ultrawide angle is the worst lens of the three on my 15 pro max, so it is the one expected to have the most noise when compared to the other two, especially with medium to low current indoor lighting at my work place.  The raws and processed jpegs will be inside the dropbox folders, while the SOOCC Indigo Jpegs will be attached here.  I will also attached the issues see in raws (uwa attached but all the raws seems to have jagged edges badly!) with the jagged edges as mentioned before too.  

Indigo Raws: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/37nvkghxnux0ibln1hqbs/AHyZ1XYwXvuqu0rP6-WOgRI?rlkey=h5zoxct3r32tbzdp9...

Processed jpegs: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/tzusimf16xkple4ka45uo/AKsCeOrT4C8_5EpYHEHIhh0?rlkey=z81uov1cat0wjqs2m...

[nhan_8084]

@BorisTheBlade I have taken some more shots to give you and your team some ideas.  This time it is outdoor, a mix of direct sun and indirect sun.  All are fully processed of highlights, shadows, noise and sharpening etc.  The direct sun ones are extremely challenging so I processed it to what I believe the average consumers will like vs the SOOC.

Daytime raws: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/1ybya8qud169kr7pj0s5t/AGSatHgZY7J28SU-hVGpDrI?rlkey=2ilhp8vwzlcm3k6kb...

Day Images Processed: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/b94f97t9oilxu7lav20kt/AHlm53ObI3hhh59LTS2mG1M?rlkey=z3tqmfiqcodqoeema...

I will attach the SOOC here and the faults seen in the raws.

[nhan_8084]

@BorisTheBlade  I took a pic of the moon tonight using 10x, the raw is here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/jz87go1xkgpwx4k6laapz/IMG_9420.dng?rlkey=ce5o4b5p1gtsi3vfly1qofjp7&st...

Editing it in lightroom mobile gave amazing results but when I export as jpeg it looks SUPER DARK!

[nhan_8084]

So I had to chose adobe standard, disable hdr editing, then it finally processed correctly.  This is OUTSTANDING quality at 10x!  I can't wait to see how Indigo performed when the periscope gets to 48mp sensor.  The shot was done using manual mode to focus the moon.

[nhan_8084]

@gregbenz This is the post I was referring to, I have attached the dng of Indigo as well, and showed what I did to have it show properly below, but having to use non-hdr edits.

[gregbenz]

9429 and 9422 JPGs are SDR only, very dark, and does not show Adobe metadata (https://www.metadata2go.com/view-metadata). It was either altered in uploading to this forum or before that, but does not look to me like an image direct from the Adobe software.

Your PNG screenshot shows HDR mode was enabled and that the image was manually edited to make it very dark (the histo shows now HDR pixels). The high contrast might do this, or might be some other slider not in the screenshot. The dark moon in your image was caused by the edit.

Your original DNG is HDR and exports as a good HDR direct from Adobe software. I'm attaching the JPG gain map exported from ACR 17.4 (will test to make sure it shows the same after I post).

[gregbenz]

@nhan_8084 follow-up on the post I just made. The JPG gain map I uploaded matches my file (exact same byte count, still an HDR gain map). The base SDR is rather dark, and this is just the defaults for "preview for SDR display" for this DNG. I would adjust those values for a better SDR if this were my image, but wanted to share the default values to show that the DNG directly from Indigo will export as proper HDR.

@BorisTheBlade The forums do not show HDR gain maps in Chrome when you click to preview. This would be very helpful for troubleshooting or otherwise viewing HDR in the Adobe forums (without having to download and open in supporting software). And I think the more that Adobe shows HDR, the more it helps generate excitement and awareness for all the great tools you've created for us. Could you pass on a feature request to show previews as HDR in these forums to the relevant team at Adobe?

[BorisTheBlade]

@BorisTheBlade The forums do not show HDR gain maps in Chrome when you click to preview. This would be very helpful for troubleshooting or otherwise viewing HDR in the Adobe forums (without having to download and open in supporting software). And I think the more that Adobe shows HDR, the more it helps generate excitement and awareness for all the great tools you've created for us. Could you pass on a feature request to show previews as HDR in these forums to the relevant team at Adobe?

By @gregbenz

That's a good point - thanks Greg. I'll add a feature request. I am still waiting for DNG upload support, which is even more important and has been pending for a long while... hopefully that will be in by end of August.

[gregbenz]

@BorisTheBlade Thank you!

[garyl69852430]

I shoot a lot of infrared with my iPhone, and when using a 720nm external filter, the ability to set the white balance to 1400Kelvin lets me compose an image in nearly black and white.

Indigo currently goes down to 2000 Kelvin. Any plans to permit an extended white balance down to perhaps 1000 Kelvin?

Alternately the ability to select black and white viewing would also work for my purpose...

Any plans for a black and white setting?

[BorisTheBlade]

I shoot a lot of infrared with my iPhone, and when using a 720nm external filter, the ability to set the white balance to 1400Kelvin lets me compose an image in nearly black and white.

Indigo currently goes down to 2000 Kelvin. Any plans to permit an extended white balance down to perhaps 1000 Kelvin?

Alternately the ability to select black and white viewing would also work for my purpose...

Any plans for a black and white setting?

By @garyl69852430

Hi Gary - thank you for your questions. Indigo is replicating the approach in Lightroom/Camera Raw with respect to the color temperature and tint ranges. I will inquire with the color scientists in that team whether there is a principle reason why they limit it to 2K on the lower end. If not, perhaps they can extend the range easily.

Regarind a B&W view in Indigo, it is trivial to generate an image where color is removed. However, generating a very nice B&W image is a bit more involved. We are investigating ways we can produce a high quality B&W mode, and will be releasing it as soon as it is ready for prime time. Stay tuned.

[nhan_8084]

So I wanted to try out max 25x handheld on the moon, and the result is just incredible!  I have never able to take the moon like this with any app, even stock app.  The attached picture is manual setting iso, shutter and focus.  Raw processed to jpeg.  @BorisTheBlade There are some weird lines as mentioned before when I showed 10x in motion object, and eventhough handheld is tad shakey vs tripod, it still exists but not bad!  I disabled Indigo's profile and went with Adobe Standard as well.  I am truely truely shocked that the small periscope sensor can even do this.  This is not the work of AI or ML from Indigo right?  If so I don't mind bc it is just outstanding!  I cannot wait for what Indigo has in store once the periscope gets to 48mp, even if binned, the sensor will be much larger.

[nhan_8084]

@BorisTheBlade could you please respond to my questions here?

[BorisTheBlade]

@BorisTheBlade could you please respond to my questions here?

By @nhan_8084

Multi-frame super-resolution is indeed done with AI. But it is not the kind of AI that hallucinates (i.e., it's not Generative AI). Instead, it uses natural handshake motion of the camera to fill in the missing detail. This can work only IF the lens resolution is higher than the sensor resolution. If the lens is diffraction limited, then there is no extra resolution to be recovered this way, so multi-frame super-resolution may bring much in terms of detail improvements. You will notice that, generally speaking, 2x zoom on Indigo is better than 10x zoom. That is because 2x camera is much, much sharper than the 5x one.

The lines you are seeing are artifacts in image processing, which happen sometimes, more so with moving objects. The ML model doesn't hallucinate, but may make a mistake like that. We'll work on minimizing those.

[nhan_8084]

@BorisTheBlade Thank you for that answer.  I suspected it was AI using fill in gaps vs the generative AI overlay using images from online database!  And yes the 2x was much better due to the much larger sensor size of the main vs the bayered periscope 5x much smaller sensor size.  Which is why I was so impressed at that such a long focal length being able to create a decent moon!  

Regarding full res access, was there any response yet from Apple?  If you guys do have access to the raw sensor for full res, how will you guys approach that to remove the "worms" look that Sony sensors has?  By worms I mean sony added LPF strengths levels to hide aliasing from remosaic.  Does Indigo have its own remosaic algorithm?

[BorisTheBlade]

Regarding full res access, was there any response yet from Apple?  If you guys do have access to the raw sensor for full res, how will you guys approach that to remove the "worms" look that Sony sensors has?  By worms I mean sony added LPF strengths levels to hide aliasing from remosaic.  Does Indigo have its own remosaic algorithm?

By @nhan_8084

Please note that when we say "we are working with Apple on this", or "we are discussing with Apple", that does not mean that there is a daily, or even weekly/monthly, meeting or anything like that. Nor does it mean that Apple will add our requested feature to their product line. Apple is a huge organization, serving a huge number of customers AND developers, and needing to support a large number of different devices with different HW and SW stacks. They try to take a "do it right" approach, which takes time and effort, and every feature needs to be prioritized against a slew of other requests we and others are making. Using full sensor raw access as an example, even if they were entertaining that idea, they would need to figure out how to convert QuadBayer raw into regular bayer RGB raw, how to do it an all devices which support it, can they use existing HW units for image processing (i.e., the ISP) for that task in order to save power, what are image quality implications, how to do rigorous quality testing on all supported devices, etc. That is a huge task, as you can imagine. In general, the closer a request is to hardware, the harder it probably is to do.

Indigo team will continue discussing our feature requests with Apple, and as things become available, we will include them in Indigo and ship improved versions of the app. Some such improvements we asked for and got include the shutter sound suppression API (minus Japan and South Korea), and in iOS 26 there is a continuous background processing API which will allow Indigo to finish image processing if the app is backgrounded, reducing the number of captures lost when users switch away from Indigo after capture.

[nhan_8084]

@BorisTheBlade Thanks for the clarification on working with apple part.  I understand imaging process is very complicated and tedious, and maybe on iOS it is much more complex than android because in android all you need to do is enable it in sensormodule.so file to expose in cam2api, and it's done since most android oems have full res computational raws already similar to pro raw, and single frame binned raw.  With that speaking, it is typically enabled via root by third party developers/modders since chinese OEM such as Xiaomi and Vivo tend to lock the full resolution raw as well.  

I know you have mentioned before that Indigo can tap into using Pro Raw, but how useful would that be versus the native Pro Raw currently?  Would Indigo team be able to remove the baked in processing or it's already in the API and cannot be removed?  Would these be in the API/software request for Apple, similar to Cam2API for androids?

[BorisTheBlade]

I know you have mentioned before that Indigo can tap into using Pro Raw, but how useful would that be versus the native Pro Raw currently?  Would Indigo team be able to remove the baked in processing or it's already in the API and cannot be removed?  Would these be in the API/software request for Apple, similar to Cam2API for androids?

By @nhan_8084

ProRaw has Apple's processing already baked in, and there is no way to turn it off. So it makes little sense to use ProRaw for what Indigo intends to do.

[nhan_8084]

Ok thanks!  

[nhan_8084]

@BorisTheBlade I came across the Greg Benz photography blog and saw an article he posted about gainmaps vs tonemapping here: https://gregbenzphotography.com/hdr-photos/gain-maps-vs-tone-mapping-hdr/ .  So I noticed as mentioned with the moon shot example that Indigo's raw tends to default to HDR editing vs normal editing of raw (non-HDR).  Since most social media websites, and browsers as mentioned by Greg do not have the capability to display HDR content even when viewed on a HDR screen such as our phones, it seems like we need to always edit using non-hdr mode in LRM correct?  I say this because when I viewed a picture sent to facebook messenger, it displayed a very weird over-hdr looks vs the proper hdr viewing in google photos, Indigo's film strip viewer, or apple photos app.  Does Indigo have a built in gain map to have it properly display in non-hdr monitors, social media apps like Greg mentioned or it's just because editing with HDR in LRM will give you improper results on non-HDR apps/monitors?  Thanks!

[gregbenz]

@nhan_8084 If you shoot RAW (DNG) with the app, you can simply choose the HDR mode or not in LRM. HDR looks amazing and I would use it if you have the screen for editing and share images on your own website or other places where you can ensure the HDR is retained. When you export the image as a JPG gain map, it will adapt to look great on any display (even those with limited or no HDR support). To do that, choose "maximize compatibility" (or JPG w/ gain map if you are exporting with my Web Sharp Pro plugin for Photoshop).

If you capture with JPG in Indigo, it is making a gain map and already has an SDR base image. 

So either way, HDR is safe and can offer significant benefits. The issue you would see in my link is when HDR is shared without a gain map.

[jrsforums]

Will LRc jpegs automatically contain gain maps or does one need to adjust settings to get them?

[BorisTheBlade]

Will LRc jpegs automatically contain gain maps or does one need to adjust settings to get them?

By @jrsforums

Gain maps won't be automatically included. You need to 1) edit the photo with HDR enabled, and 2) click the HDR Output checkbox in the export window: https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/exporting-photos-basic-workflow.html

[nhan_8084]

@gregbenz thanks for the reply!  I definitely understand hdr edit will look proper on hdr capable displays and websites that does support it.  However, as I mentioned, the moon shot was edited in hdr above and it exported jpeg as extremely dark on hdr and non-hdr display until I toggle hdr off and displayed fine on both!  Maybe this is a lightroom mobile issue not being able to export gain maps?