P: Introducing the Project Indigo camera app

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
May 23, 2025
408 replies
244509 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.

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

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nhan_8084

Known Participant

@BorisTheBlade This set shows Camac, Indigo, and stock. All 3 has incorrect white balance, but Camac is the closest. I have included the proper raw to jpeg of Indigo to represent the true scene that my eyes sees and it’s settings.

Indigo raw processed: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/9sejd5m648hjmi6v7agxo/IMG_2666.jpeg?rlkey=3pbuee0hkkjh4qxhebw7dj90c&st=waqdznq4&dl=0 This has no LTM of Indigo, I hit reset to all in LRM.

Settings used:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ka1oc8lzhbfcse8w8ho94/IMG_2667.png?rlkey=muhp7w7apmkakhhnys6o2x7yf&st=fl5kf53w&dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/immi8u4wl0hrf3g8eeehx/IMG_2668.png?rlkey=6kh8ricjqaops6whahufvdctx&st=sdldd7yp&dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/lo1c9ddopaskf1qix7opo/IMG_2669.png?rlkey=r19snpxo6yjccwg7uzjuon7t2&st=1eh866aw&dl=0

IMG_2663 dng is Indigo’s raw exported as is, nothing touched. The bright, oversharpened, warm one is obviously stock. Rest are Camac’s jpeg, dng, and Indigo’s SOOC jpeg. Also PLEASE take a close look at how Indigo’s jpeg is heavily heavily crushed black shadows to the point it can’t see the metal beam on the upper left corner where the AC return air duct is. The processed raw to jpeg show proper shadow, but with a lot of noises due to 0 denoising applied. Stock is also crushed but not as bad as Indigo, while Camac’s jpeg is hazy and quite underexposed.

IMG_2663.dng

20260129_130550-16EV.dng

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nhan_8084

Known Participant

@BorisTheBlade here is that comparison made before with the couch pillow patterns. Camac vs Indigo, main lens, all auto as usual. If you take both raws to LRM, remove sharpness and denoise, you will see that Camac has more details at max crop and show more correct patterns on the pillows. I def know Indigo can render this on same level as Camac or greater, and we can’t blame full res downsampling either because Camac do not have access to it! (Eventhough I did mention that downsampling was turned off in the modded google camera apk).

There is also some very very unflattering shadow noise if shadows are lifted versus Camac using same values in LRM. As you can see, Camac even had a expo increase( to make overall image comparible bc its raw is very dim) and shadows are still clean and definitely much much more cleaner than Indigo.

Looking forward to the new apk pipeline redo, and hopefully less “AI” used.

PS… the site update now limits screenshot png file to only 5mb! iOS screenshots are much much bigger, no idea why.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/07mss5vgh7vcuucrungjz/IMG_2652.png?rlkey=csuuqsduqqdmhav7owdbjx8vu&st=r4654ewx&dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/3fxcy5w3ainfhfvb6faxz/IMG_2655.png?rlkey=b8b6lghha9av6ye9v2h34h0xa&st=dyuawjhw&dl=0

The screenshot from LRM showed both using HDR edit function as well.

IMG_2651.dng

20260129_105748-16EV.dng

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nhan_8084

Known Participant

@BorisTheBlade seems like raw dng upload works! Here’s a comparison using the main lens and tele lens of Camac app vs Indigo app. Both are latest, all auto, Indigo’s raw was exported as is using LRM so no additional process was made.

If you import both Camac’s raw and Indigo’s raw to LRM or any editing app, set all sharpening and denoising to 0, you will see Camac’s app retain much much more details and true sharpness than Indigo. Indigo still has that weird blur(softness) to it like there’s still some denoising applied even though you did mention that it’s true raw(nothing processed). This could be a problem elsewhere aside that I am not an expert of. Perhaps this has something to do with the high frequency rendering that you mentioned Indigo is still “working on”.

From speaking with Camac’s developer, his auto mode which is labeled as 16EV, stacks 3 frames. I don’t know how much frames Indigo did but Google Camera default stacking is 6 frames and it’s not as blur(soft) as how Indigo’s raw look.

Please take a look into this, especially these sample set.

20260129_090439-16EV.dng

20260129_090521-16EV.dng

IMG_2648.dng

IMG_2647.dng

harvasyuk

Participating Frequently

About the sharpness:

What I noticed both with 16 pro and 17 pro - all of RAW photos that came out of sensors that do pixel bining, somehow look soft and oversharpened at the same time. I’m talking about true single-frame RAW dng files that most third-party camera apps do, all the Lightroom sharpening/noise sliders at 0.

I used 16 pro for about 6 months - all the telephoto RAW shots looked perfectly natural and slightly soft (something like my old Pixel 5 was producing). There was no signs of artifficial sharpness or anything that would make me think that the photo is processed.

With 17 pro I started noticing that telephoto RAW shots look like they’re slightly oversharpened - similar to what the main sensor is doing. This is mostly noticeable in the trees when taking photos of the landscapes. Especially during the winter.

Both 16 pro and 17 pro produce horrible RAW pictures with the wide and ultrawide modules. Lots of artefacts: the purple tint around small details, like wires and trees. And also the overshapened look while actually being soft at the same time (this is really weird).

I was a bit surprised when I compared the two RAWs of the main module (single-frame true bayer RAW) from Pixel 7 and 17 pro. Pixel 7 looks much more natural. Somehow there’s slightly less noise, more details and no artefacts like color fringing or anything that would give away the pixel-binning sensor.

Project Indigo makes iphone RAWs better overall. Most of the time RAWs are okay. I appreciate the good SNR thanks to stacking. But the generated jpegs are too processed. There’s too much noise reduction, contrast, saturation and sharpening. So, I only use Indigor for taking RAWs.

I’d say that the strange RAW results on iphone is Apple’s issue. And, unfortunately, it seems like they are not going to do anything with that.

Would be awesome if they allowed third parties taking full sensor 48mp RAW. But I guess that’s also not going to happen because it’s Apple and they always have some weird reason for such decisions.

N

nhan_8084

Known Participant

@BorisTheBlade here is a comparison of Camac app latest version vs Indigo’s latest version. Both were shot auto, no tap, raw was processed via LRM with sharpness and denoising set to 0, and Indigo resetting to all to remove the LTM.

Camac: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/tnk4dsz1bkryfao25h75c/IMG_2619.jpeg?rlkey=h7iojmjfsfkfa7rus4msdu0hi&st=hbnmn816&dl=0

Indigo: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/2w9vij34ribyozbflo62j/IMG_2621.jpeg?rlkey=6ye4jl9iha8wc1zcrzyqaq87c&st=fm64sxyx&dl=0

As you can see, the Camac app output is much better defined in details versus Indigo. I will use this app to compare versus Indigo now instead of stock to have a baseline on processing issues of artifacts, or just to show what is lacking.

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nhan_8084

Known Participant

@BorisTheBlade I see the new forum format has been updated, and I don’t know if it’s for the best or worst because now you don’t have access to the last page (or page designation), all it does is show “show more replies” which will take forever to get to the latest replies! Unless I’m missing something here.

D

default0i09akcya5ak

Participating Frequently

In Adobe’s continual effort to hate customers/users we need to click on the ‘read previous’ to see the latest posts.

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nhan_8084

Known Participant

I dont even see that option…

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T__L

Participating Frequently

When can we expect the next release? It's been 3 weeks since the last update for the iPhone 17's.

The lack of updates is really off-putting... We understand there's a smaller team working on this app, but how else is the app going to improve without more updates so that we can provide more feedback?

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nnhuy

Participating Frequently

@BorisTheBlade Hello, I posted here a couple months ago asking about dramatically different saturation levels between the SDR and HDR looks, especially in shots with skies and clouds. I wasn't able to provide .DNGs back then, but now here is a shared folder of several different shots in .DNG+.JPG further demonstrating the problem. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1WFa2mTelBAp9VVWXIg4lVGCOvenyRrUj?usp=sharing

Again, I don't have an opinion on which look is correct. I just do not want there to be drastic changes in image "feel" when switching between SDR and HDR, especially because iOS/MacOS will also freely swap between variants with changing low-power-mode, ambient lighting, etc.

C

Capture66

Participant

I switched from a 15 Pro to a 17 Pro and I can confirm that the results are clearly more hit & miss with the 17P. This is about the JPEG output only. WB completely off for no apparent reason (on auto) and a occasional 'over the top' HDR effect. On the 15P Pi's output was more consistant.

Using Pi for a few weeks now, I'm amazed how stunning the images can look. That said, comparing shots from the Apple app, Pi and the real life scene, it seems that Pi leans towards 'bigger than life' tone and colour rendering. To me the images often look more saturated, vibrant and more contrasty/dramatic than the scene in front of the camera. Gorgeous without question but not necessarily accurate. Or is that just me? (again, this is about the JPEG output)

N

nhan_8084

Known Participant

Thanks for confirming what I have been saying as well on my 17 Pro Max to
let the team knows it’s not just me or personal preference! The more
reports like these, the devs will realize there’s really issue with JPEG
outputs and needs fixing asap!

photopoeth

Inspiring

I have just dicovered that Pi doesn't write the camera direction into the EXIF data. It's a minor issue but maybe it is not the only data field that gets stripped. So checking if all metadata available gets written to the file maybe is worth putting on the todo list for the future.

photopoeth

Inspiring

SORRY for posting this. Unfortunately I cannot delete this posting. I just found that this issue has been discussed a couple of days ago. So please ignorieren this posting.

------------ ignore below -----------

How does SR work with DNG-only? Is it really the case that you can only achieve 12 MP at 2x zoom on the iPhone 15 Pro Max, for example, as a JPG, and end up with only 3 MP with DNG-only?

I'm sorry, but I have to admit that I don't seem to have fully understood the SR concept in Pi yet. Why can't you use the 48 MP mode and then the 12 MP crop in 2x zoom mode with Pi?

T

T__L

Participating Frequently

When can we expect the next update? I feel like photos from the app from my 16 Pro took sharper photos.

O

OliverVW

Participant

I would have to agree. My 17 Pro Max seems to smear images more leaving them with less detail than my 16PM. It seems more hit or miss now.

?

????????_4983

Participating Frequently

Thank you, Oliver - I'll pass the DNGs along. Note that it is oftentimes difficult to reproduce the same results from someone else in a camera, because they may depend on a whole lot of things:

App version
Device model
Individual device characteristics (they are not all the same - FAR from it)
Shooting conditions
App settings (capture mode, capture parameters)
Amount of handshake

If you are able to identify a set of conditions that reliably produce the subpar results you are seeing, that would help us tremendously. We appreciate your help in debugging this issue.

@BorisTheBlade I can tell you when the super res zoom produces soft results. Basically if you shoot any scene with motion these areas get massively denoised, they appear to have also a lot of sharpening to them to compensate even if i have turned the sharpening down to 0 in lightroom. Also even when there are no moving subjects in the frame when shooting at 2x on my iphone 14 with super res zoom things like grass or foliage tend to have the same denoised and sharpened plasticky look with lack of detail and in other areas there is a lot more detail but foliage and grass suffers the most. There are also misalignmnets sometimes and artifacts when shooting with srz ag night. If you manage to do as good of a job with this algorithm as google did with their super res zoom which produced 2x more detail without these problems even when having motion in the scene i would be glad to test it and to provide more detailed feedback.

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