Adobe’s Project Indigo Helps Your iPhone Photos Look More DSLR-Like

In the latest twist of tech nostalgia-hits-contemporary photography, Adobe released a new iPhone camera app, Project Indigo. The ones behind it may ring a few bells. Ex-Googlers Marc Levoy and Florian Kainz, the very same who brought us the Pixel camera, now want to bring that same magic to iPhones, but with a somewhat different goal this time.

Rather than pursuing the ultra-processed aesthetic prevalent in smartphone photography today, Adobe’s Project Indigo goes opposite. It is inclined towards something more understated, nearer to what it feels like to use a DSLR (or SLR) camera. In Levoy and Kainz’s assessment, most mobile camera apps either overdo the filters and the sharpening, or underdo it with a “zero-processing” approach. Indigo attempts to find the middle ground. Here, it is not zero processing. On the contrary, it is about just the right amount of processing.

Remember: subtle tone mapping, soft color boosts, and humble sharpening are just enough to give your image some life without giving the impression that you are shooting for social media perfection.

More Control and Less Noise with Project Indigo (Literally)

In addition to its philosophy of images, Project Indigo introduces something photographers have forever wished for: manual controls in an iPhone camera app. You can tweak everything from exposure to ISO, even taking JPEG or RAW. And due to computational photography magic, the app compiles up to 32 underexposed photos to create one top-notch image. That is some serious behind-the-scenes effort for a “simple” mobile photo.

Some playful, experimental work is also included. Remove Reflections,” for instance, employs AI to eliminate glare or reflections off glass, something the rest of us have wrestled with at some point when trying to take a photo through a window or at an exhibit. 

Lavoy and Kainz both have a history of accelerating smartphone photography. While working at Google, they made “computational photography” a mainstream concept among enthusiasts, if nowhere else. Pixel’s ability to transform mediocre hardware into outstanding photo output helped initiate a camera software war that other manufacturers still struggle to keep up with.

With Project Indigo, they are not attempting to top Apple’s Camera app in terms of flash. They are asking a more fundamental question: what if your smartphone could photograph like a real camera, but with intelligence? Not too much, not too automated, just thoughtful tools at your fingertips. 

Final Thoughts

As somebody who has worked in both DSLR equipment and smartphones for years, I have always believed most smartphone images look wonderful until you attempt to do something meaningful with them, such as print them large, edit in earnest, or photograph in challenging lighting. Project Indigo appears to fill that very void. It’s not a substitute for a full-frame sensor, but it’s as close to that experience your phone can possibly give you, without carrying extra gear.

Do you think it will take off? That will depend on how many people leave their default camera app in the dust. But it is an intelligent move from Adobe and worth a shot.

[via engadget; Image credits: Adobe]

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