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: 

[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.

[Kukulcan67]

With images still being 12MP I wonder if an upgrade from 15 Pro to 17 Pro would make much of a difference when it comes to Indigo alone regardless of the improvements to iPhone camera.

[chrisd40442477]

I took the exact path last month upgrading from a 15 Pro Max to a 17 Pro Max

I am heavy into Indigo usage (only shooting raw) and I will say my opinion is that yes the 17 Pro upgrade is a huge benefit over the 15.

Have been shooting professionally for 40 years, but still feel that 12 megapixels for the majority of usage is more than adequate for many image applications.  

[nhan_8084]

the main lens now, the ultrawide and the tele yes since it has a much bigger sensor and newer tech in that sensor vs the old 12mp.  You will get better imaging based on new processing algorithm adapting to that sensor, and I can tell you that apple's tele jpeg is now much much better rendering vs the typical heavy denoising oversharpening.