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: 

[nhan_8084]

@BorisTheBlade I can confirm that Indigo does always under expose vs stock camera, however that isn't always good for jpeg since it isn't true to scene.  For iPhone 17 series, the exposure and hdr apple has now is almost perfect to the human eyes(aside from led neon signs, and lightbulbs) in pretty much all scenes tested.  Can Indigo do ETTR?  Raw is fine as is but I noticed that unless you hit reset to all in lightroom mobile, the saturation/vibrance levels are quite high.  The Indigo jpeg also have the same high levels of saturation vs stock which is very accurate in terms of saturation/vibrance as well.

[Eruannon88]

I like the way Indigo manages the highlights and I wonder if you ever considered implementing different metering systems (if that's even possible on iPhone), I'd really like to have a "Highlight-Weighted" one, for example (like on Sony or Ricoh's cameras). And keep up the good work. Thank you for this app!

[t.linn]

I strongly support your approach of protecting the highlights!

[toni_0822]

Hellooo, just wanted to very kindly ask for a little update about Android compatibility. And if the compatibility with older devices will depend mainly on the android version, the ram, the processing power, camera hardware/cpu or just all of it.

Thanks very much in advance 🙂

[johndoc1]

I post here because I didn't see an Indigo community.  If there is a better community, please transfer this post.

I have an iOS 17pro phone and just had Project Indigo (Version 10.5) appear after not being available initially.  I set the photo format to DNG. I immediately tried a set of photos (0.5x, 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x) of the same scene to check operation.  None of the photos were 48mp!  Some were as low as 3mp.  Also, the images were gray-like.  I immediately switched back to the Apple camera, shot the same scene and got 48mp for 0.5, 1.0, 4.0 and 12mp for 2 and 8x.  I then tried DNG+JPG.  Still no 48mp (1x photo).  Inside Project Indigo, I had two versions of the photo, one labeled JPG and one labeled DNG+JPG.  In my camera roll (iPhone Photos), only the JPG appeared.

A few questions:

1. How do I set Project Indigo to use the 48mp cameras
2. Why do the DNGs look gray (unprocessed?)?
3.  Why don't I see a DNG file in my camera roll?

Appreciate any help on the 17Pro.

John D

[toni_0822]

Hey, one Page before the 48mp topic was already mentioned. Just gonna repost what the dev told the other user:

"Indigo does not support more than 12MP capture. ... We are looking into adding some form of 48MP support for Indigo, but that is not available yet."

About the rest I have no idea, sorry😅

But maybe you will figure out more if you red a few of the past pages, definitely helpful information there of some kind.

Have a great day🙂👋🏼

[johndoc1]

Thanks for the reply.  Bummer.  

[Jeff Donald]

Just to expand on the limitations, Apple does not give access to a 48 Megapixel processing pipeline unless Apple ProRAW is selected. ProRAW is a highly processed image using HDR, multiple frames and computational processing (photography). A major part of PI is avoiding the pitfalls of over processed HDR and computational processing. This means 12 megapixel dng files. 

[johndoc1]

Thanks for the explanation.  I understand, just wish I could get the best of both worlds.  Sounds like a typical Apple 'walled garden' approach.

[Sweet Light]

My understanding is that PI also uses computational photography, combining multiple frames. PI is doing it differently, resulting in higher quality color reproduction throughout the tone scale.

[WangZheng]

Thanks so much for the app, the result it produces remind some of my favorite phone photography taken on nexus. I wish I could use the project indigo as my main camera app but the only problem stopping me doing so right now is that the app opens significantly slower than native camera app. It not only has a logo screen for half second, but a long lag for camera to be active (blackout at the beginning of entering the interface. the native camera app does that too but with a much shorter duration) I do a lot street photography, and this makes the flow sometimes awkward. Not to say taking photo of my cats, right now I only have the confidence to use indigo when they are sleeping.

[nhan_8084]

Took this pic on my iPhone 17 pro max using the latest Indigo version, the jpeg white balance is not accurate.  It did proper white balance to white but it isn't scene accurate as it nuked the 4000K softwhite yellowish hue cast.   I have attached the auto jpeg, raw, and correct post processed jpg.

raw: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/s2g2ju1x70d0nrtmnmqyu/Photo-Nov-01-2025-9-26-14-AM.dng?rlkey=osywx60x...

[nhan_8084]

Also forgot to add, it seems like max zoom is now only 20x vs 25x before to match native cam on iPhone 15 pro max.  Can the team make it have zoom up to 40x to match apple's native zoom?  Of course with less denoising and mush once the team update the AI algos.

[Sweet Light]

I am a new user to Indigo, having just upgraded from an old iPhone XR to the iPhone 17 Pro. I have started testing using the iPhone on a tripod, comparing the native phone app to Indigo. On a 14mm photo, I noticed a subtle white band in the sky. The shape of a rainbow, but not a rainbow, just white. Is there a way of sharing the file with Adobe that is not public?

[Sweet Light]

I am a new user to Indigo, having just upgraded from an old iPhone XR to the iPhone 17 Pro. I have started testing using the iPhone on a tripod, comparing the native phone app to Indigo. Super Resolution tests: at 200 mm Indigo gives better detail than the Apple app. However, at 48 mm, Indigo smears fine detail. The Apple app has much better detail at 48 mm (12 mp file). I will do more tests to see if these results are typical for the 200 mm and 48 mm settings. 

[nhan_8084]

Just a note, I have personally tested SR at 2x and the 8x (17 pro max), and the 10x (15 pro max) and it causes severe mushing and denoising along with artifacts of incomplete imaging (merging and alignment issue) if there are motion detected in the scene.  Even the very slight wind movement of foliages causes mush in jpeg AND raw.  I have brought this up to the team and they will work on improving the AI algorithm.

[multipraktik]

Just bought a 16 Pro and have been testing the Indigo camera app. Here are my findings:

Pros:

• Fantastic low-light performance; great landscape photos

• Excellent dynamic range and detail

• No other app currently delivers such impressive 2× and 10× (SR) shots

• Clean design

• Quick jpg development option in the gallery when shooting DNG only

Cons:

• Touch-to-focus is broken; the camera always chooses the focus point on its own

• No AE/AF lock

• No magnified focus assist in manual mode

• No portrait mode

• The interface needs work and optimization:

  • No way to hide the histogram

  • Too many taps to access exposure compensation

  • No customizable/favorite buttons (the histogram area could be repurposed for this)

  • The “Camera” button in the top-right corner is pointless (repeats Photo/Night switch?)

  • Space left &right to the Photo/Night switches could be used for custom buttons

  • The app could really use a proper icon (Pi?)

---

Overall, it’s a great app to experiment with and has huge potential. But in its current state, there’s no way it can replace the stock camera app as the primary shooter.

[karen_5438]

I never understood this obsessions with megapixels.
I'd take color rendition over megapixels any day and in that regard Indigo reminds me of Foveon camera color rendition (Sigma DP2 as prime example)

[Sweet Light]

I agree that color reproduction is essential no matter the amount of megapixels. Indigo definitely provides better color reproduction than the Apple camera app, particularly in the shadow areas. Whether or not megapixels is important depends upon your final output. For social media or around a 16 X 24 inch plus print, then I find 12 mp can be sufficient. Above these sizes the higher 48 mp sensor can provide noticeable detail that is lacking from the 12 mp sensor. According to Adobe it is not possible to do Indigo's computational photography that allows for improved color reproduction from the 48 mp sensor. Hopefully at some point that will change. For now I know that the iPhone 17 pro 12 mp or 48 mp is not a substitute for the full frame 61 mp sensor that I normally use for landscape work. However, I only have the full frame camera with me for planned shoots. I have the iPhone with me all of the time, which opens up a new world of photography opportunities.

[Sweet Light]

It is frustrating trying to do a systematic evaluation of Indigo because it does not record proper metadata for the Focal Length 35mm. I try to be systematic in evaluation photographic equipment. In the case of Indigo, this means organizing files by the  Focal Length 35mm equivalent. For some reason Indigo incorrectly records this import metadata. The result is a frustrating amount of time required to cross reference files imported to a desktop computer, viewed in Lighroom, against the Indigo app's information for each file indicating what the digital zoom was. For example, I want to organize all of the images shot at 48 mm SR into a single folder. This way I can compare them to 48 mm images taken with the Apple camera app or a different camera app. Indigo incorrectly shows 24mm as the 35mm equivalent focal length for both 24 mm and 48 mm shots. This is true of 100 mm and 200 mm shots If you want a systematic and proper evaluation done of the Indigo app it would be very helpful that the metadata is recorded accurately. In analysing the iPhone 17 pro camera apps, I treat the iPhone as three different cameras. In addition I want to further differentiate between 24 mm vs 48 mm and 100 mm vs 200 mm photos. This is the basis for evaluating a camera app ability to record images using 14 mm, 24 mm, 48 mm, 100 mm and 200 mm settings.   

[nhan_8084]

@BorisTheBlade Apple just released iOS 26.1, will we see Indigo update with working selfie soon?  Also can you please provide to us what is the next update focus for Indigo?

[nhan_8084]

Took some shot of the moon today and I got very strange results.  First two has artifacts, and I noticed if you align center, the final image shifts left, so I have to align to the right to shift left to center.  This is annoying really, and I know probably it has to do with EIS and OIS.  Also the white balance can be seen in viewfinder shifting between grey and proper moon thats a tad yellowish white.  The blue Indigo image came out even when viewfinder is yellow moon.  First two Indigo shots using Night Mode, Pro mode 1 frame.  Blue shot Indigo is 20 frames same modes.  Stock 20x included for reference.

[nhan_8084]

I did another experiment by adjust iso and ss in night mode and pro mode, 6 frames and ETTR so viewfinder clips but final jpeg and raw still properly exposed.  I want to ETTR so that way when I edit the raw in HDR, the SDR base isn't as dark in LRM.  I have attached the sooc jpg and the raw post processed, 20x zoom again.