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]

Hi Jeff - thank you for giving Indigo a go, and for your message. The team is happy to know you find Indigo's image quality good, especially on the large screen. Regarding the lens distortion question, I will follow up with the team on that.

Since you mentioned Adaptive Profile and amount sliders, are you saying that you typically redice the amount for both Indigo and Adaptive Profile, or more for one than the other?

[Daniel22592144fp60]

I am very interested in trying this app out but it's restrictive as far as platform support. The App Store says you require iOS 18.5 minimum but iOS 18 is plagued with bugs and hardware issues if you aren't using an iPhone 15 or 16 and Apple refuses to fix any issues for the end users. My 13 pro max is more than functional and powerful enough on iOS 17 to run the application, is there any chance you can lower the requirements for a broader user base to try out the application? I would prefer not to brick my phone with an intentionally faulty iOS update just to try out a rather enticing application.

[BorisTheBlade]

Hello Daniel - thank you for reaching out to the team and your interest in Indigo. Unfortunately, Indigo is using several APIs which are only available in iOS 18.x, so downgrading the iOS version is not an option for the time being. 

[jdeee]

I'm getting nothing but a black screen and yes I have tried all of the recommended troubleshooting steps. I'm on iOS 18.5 and an iPhone 15 Pro. 

[default0i09akcya5ak]

This happened to me when I tried to run Indigo immediately after downloading it from the App store. I shutdown my 13PM and turned on again and now all is normal. Hope this helps. 

[andreasw5942258]

Hi, this App looks great, but the Battery consumption is terrible. 10% battery drain after 3 test shots and then I got the overheating warning...! I'm on iOs 18.5 with a iPhone 15 Pro Max

[paulcporter]

The potential of this new camera app is amaizing indeed, so long as you solve the overheating problem with the iPhone 16 Pro when its been open for 20 or 30 minutes. I was checking out settings, without shooting anything. I understand this is happening on more that iPhone 16 Pros. My phone got hot enough for iOS to tell me about it. Without the case, I’m not sure I cold hold it comfortably. 

What's going on and when willl this be addressed?

[BorisTheBlade]

Hi Paul - thank you for taking Indigo for a spin, and for the feedback. We are looking into the thermal issues and will be addressing many of them in the upcoming releases.

[chubby_puppy]

Very nice camera app. This will most likely become my default camera.

Any chance of adjustable noise reduction and sharpening?

[BorisTheBlade]

Hello - thank you for testing Indigo and providing feedback. We will put your request on the feature updates list and work on scheduling it for a future release. Just to make sure we understand it correctly, is you primary goal to compeltely turn 'off' noise reducton and sharpening? Given that it is a computational photography camera, a large portion of denoising happens when we align & merge multiple frames: are you talking even about that noise, or are you interested only in the post-processing denoising after the align & merge step is completed?

[nhan_8084]

@BorisTheBlade This coincides with what I asked as well earlier.  It will be nice to have adjustments to the noise reduction, and sharpening mostly after the merge and alignment of frames, the post processing.

[chubby_puppy]

Hi,

I would be interested in tuning both NR and sharpening, similar to what I can do today on the 'other platform', Android. I have an unofficial port of the Google Camera installed on my old Nokia 7 Plus and the app offer controls such as in the attached photo.

These kind of controls are quite common in Android camera apps after Google released the Camera2 API. I suspect that with the lack of similar features in iPhone camera apps, this kind of low level control over the image capture is not available in the iOS APIs.

[Wurstkrapfen]

How about just unlocking AI denoise in LR Mobile?

[chubby_puppy]

Was that a reply to my question? If so, I am more interested in tuning down or switching off NR and sharpening.

[stephenw91708875]

Hey team -- the app is GREAT so far. I wanted to submit a feature request that would help me completely replace the default camera app on iPhone: please create an Apple Watch companion app that will allow me to trigger the shutter remotely. Would be great if it behaves just like the native Camera companion where I can see the image preview on my watch screen.

Thanks!

[BorisTheBlade]

Hello Stephen - thank you for trying Indigo, and for reaching out to the team with your suggestions. Apple Watch controls are on our TODO list, and we will be adding them in a future release.

[derosa42]

Took just 8 shots this morning outdoors, got the overheating message and the app shut down.  I mages don't seem to focus well.

 

[BorisTheBlade]

Hello - thank you for trying Indigo and for providing feedback. Can you let me know how you captured this image:

• Was this in Macro mode (and which zoom level was used)?
• Did you tap to focus or let the camera auto-focus?
• Was the device handheld or on a tripod?

I found that sometimes opening Pro controls and using manual focus to really zero in on perfect sharpness can help, even if handheld. 

[rob_4535]

iPhone 13 Pro / iOS 18.5

camera doesn't work. only shows a black screen.

[BorisTheBlade]

Hello Rob - thank you for reaching out to the team, and apologies for the difficulties you are having with the app.

As debugging steps, can you try the following steps (in order):

1. Close Indigo (not just pause, but kill the app) and open the native camera app, then open Indigo again.
2. Restart the device.
3. Uninstall Indigo, then restart the device, then install Indigo again.

Let us know if any of these steps helped!

[Curmudgeon76]

Hello,

I love the app and maybe I'm just confused but I cannot get the app to output a DNG. I have the app set to "JPEG + DNG" and when I take it photo with indigo it saves a single file to my photos app. 

When I load the photo in the photos app it does say "JPEG + RAW" in the top left but when I look into the info screen the file has a JPG extension.

When I load it up in Lightroom I have none of the controls I would typically have for an Apple ProRAW file for example. I cannot select from multiple white balances as I could with RAW and I don't have access to any of the built in RAW profiles within Lightroom.

Please forgive my ignorance if I'm doing something wrong but Indigo only seems to be saving a JPEG regardless of the setting chosen within the app. 

[BorisTheBlade]

Hello - thank you for your message and for reaching out. Greg Benz has written up a very nice primer on Indigo, including best ways to get a DNG into Lightroom for editing: https://gregbenzphotography.com/photography-reviews/project-indigo-the-best-camera-app-for-smart-pho...

We will be looking into DNG-only saving path in a future update, which will help simplify the workflow.

[Curmudgeon76]

Helpful document but it only seems to address sending a DNG via airdrop or to the cloud for editing on a desktop computer. Still can't figure out how to simply open the file in Lightroom mobile on my phone as a DNG. 

[Curmudgeon76]

Ok. Think I figured it out. Looks like I have to click the LR button within Indigo and open it in Lightroom directly from there. It appears to be opening as a DNG. And then I suppose I could export it from Lightroom as a DNG for later editing if needed. Thanks!

[BorisTheBlade]

Correct - when you send the image from Indigo to Lightroom mobile app, it will open the DNG. If you have a subscription that DNG will be synced to the cloud, so it will be available on other Lightroom surfaces. If not, you can save it from Lightroom and be able to open it with other tools.