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]

I really like the photos Indigo is capturing. Please consider adding support for using the Apple Watch for remote shutter trigger. I'm eager to experiment with Indigo's Night Mode and long exposures. Being able to do that without touching the phone would be swell! Many thanks 

By @NJSS

Thank you for reaching out - this is indeed on our roadmap to do. For the time being you can set up a timed capture in Indigo (3, 5, or 10s), which will make sure the device is perfectly stable before the Long Exposure capture starts.

[NJSS]

I was looking for a way to do that. Where are the controls to set the
timer?

Nick Sewell
http://nicksewell.com

[BorisTheBlade]

I was looking for a way to do that. Where are the controls to set thetimer?Nick Sewellhttp://nicksewell.com
By @NJSS

Swipe left on the histogram area on top and you'll reveal an ancillary tools panel. It should show 5 icons: if you see only 3, that is because you have Button Shapes Accessibility feature turned off and Indigo doesn't react well to it (we are improving on that in the upcoming release btw). If you see 5 icons, then the timer will be the leftmost one.

[jrsforums]

@BorisTheBlade if I have 'button shapes 'ON', I see 3.  If I have it OFF, I see 5.  I am on ios26.

[giofurlanetto]

Hi,

Could you please include the option to enable the flash feature? 

[BorisTheBlade]

Hi,

Could you please include the option to enable the flash feature? 

By @giofurlanetto

We will investigate adding flash to the pictures, though with computational photography that gets a bit harder to do: when capturing up to 32 frames, the LED flash on the back of the mobile device can either be run in full power mode for a very short time, or it can be run in low power (torch) mode for longer. In the former case, only a few of the 32 frames will have been exposed with the flash, making aligning and merging the image harder. For the latter case, the flash will be probably too weak to be helpful in many scenarios. If you have the time and are willing to share, I'd be curious to learn from you what are the situations in which you would prefer to have the flash capture option. Thanks.

[giofurlanetto]

Thanks for the detailed explanation, that makes sense. The kind of situation where I’d personally love to have a flash option is when taking photos like the one I attached. The flash helps make the person in the foreground stand out against the background, giving that nice effect, but I don't like the oversharpened effect the default camera creates.

I’ve also seen some AI tools that simulate a flash effect afterward, which shows there’s definitely an interest in this kind of look. Thank you for your time!

[BorisTheBlade]

Thanks for the detailed explanation, that makes sense. The kind of situation where I’d personally love to have a flash option is when taking photos like the one I attached. The flash helps make the person in the foreground stand out against the background, giving that nice effect, but I don't like the oversharpened effect the default camera creates.

I’ve also seen some AI tools that simulate a flash effect afterward, which shows there’s definitely an interest in this kind of look. Thank you for your time!

By @giofurlanetto

This helps clarify things. Will talk to the team about such a use case and see how we can add a potential solution to the roadmap.

[WillSnaps]

Oh and just one last question, with the iPhone 17 Pro, would you be able to almost simulate an automatic variable ND filter? If so, that could be a big deal for video!

[BorisTheBlade]

Oh and just one last question, with the iPhone 17 Pro, would you be able to almost simulate an automatic variable ND filter? If so, that could be a big deal for video!

By @WillSnaps

Can you share what you envision this "automatic variable ND filter" would do when recording video? What kind of use-cases would it apply to, and what outputs do you wish to generate with it?

[????????_4983]

@BorisTheBlade Is the new update coming this week? Thanks!

[jrsforums]

@????????_4983 good grief....it comes when it comes 😀

[WillSnaps]

The guys that made the Kino video camera app touched on the ND filter situation  https://www.lux.camera/kino-a-pro-video-camera-in-four-months/#:~:text=There%20were%20just,good%20to...