usatoday24
I’ve been loading with me for some time Canon R7 Every time I’m on a trip. The reason is easy: I am very tired of the photos of the iPhone 16 Pro. It is not an exclusive problem of this phone, After analyzing all high -end cameras I have been reaching the same conclusion for years: it is of no use to improve the hardware if the defendant is still bad. And why do I consider it bad? Because with sensors that touch the inch and processors more powerful than those of a computer, mobile phones should be closer to a SRFLEX than of the same photos they made five years ago.
Almost 10 years ago, there was a company that wanted to change everything with the “computational photography.” That company was Google, who launched in 2016 Google Pixel. In his day, it was a milestone: a mobile that took advantage of artificial intelligence (although at that time there was not so much emphasis on that word) to take much above those of his rivals. At the head of the photography team for the Google Pixel was Marc Levoy, currently an adobe worker. After a few years in silence he has done what no manufacturer has wanted to do: squeeze to the limit the power of a mobile to teach us what he can really do.
Why is it important. Adobe has announced very discreetly Indigo Projectan app that applies as we had never seen the principles of computational photography to the iPhone. Until now, no such radical attempt had been made: this application consumes many resources and shows results that, until now, did not seem possible in the automatic mode of a phone.
Is the best sample of The stagnant that manufacturers carry (including Google) in mobile photography. And although we spend more than 1,000 euros in a telephone, The camera is always well below what I could really do. Levoy himself makes it clear in his publication: “People often complain about the” appearance of the smartphone “: too bright, low contrast, high color saturation, strong softened and strong sharpness. This prosecuted comes, in part, for the most mainstream user preferences. But when someone spends a grassland on a phone (and in Europe we are doing it more than ever), this begins to be a problem.
What is project indigo. This is a free app developed by Adobe Labs and led, among others, by Marc Levoy. The most nerd can enjoy manual controls, but the average user will not have to worry about anything: it is a “normal and current” with which you open, aim and shoot. The key is that, when he takes the photo, he is doing something completely different from what Apple does.
This is what Indigo can do with a RAW from the iPhone.
At all rag. A few years ago, when Apple talked about Smart HDR, the company showed combinations of up to 9 images to get a photo in HDR. The current number is not known, but Apple’s HDR has not improved substantially in recent years. Levoy does make clear how his app works: 32 PHOTOS IN RAW to create only one, neither more nor less.
Combining 32 frames to create a single photo is a very high figure. Thanks to this, less noise is achieved in shadow areas, less reflections, and less overexposure (white parts, very burned), using more low-exposite frames. Thanks to having so many information, the textures are maintained better, the reduction of software noise is less necessary, and the softened is minimized.
MAPOO DE TONESO NUGUAL | What can be achieved with a correct tones mapping.
Going beyond. Another of the big problems of current photography has to do with HDR, and how shadow areas are crushed (or, vice versa, everything is burned) in scenes that require a high dynamic range. To avoid the classic (and unpleasant) forced HDR effect, this app has its own tone mapping (a fundamental process to obtain information on luminosity and color when dealing with HDR content). In other less complex words: this app processes as adobe wants, And not as Apple wants.
The zoom. Indigo’s last key has to do with the zoom, one of the historical weak points of the iPhone. This application, without us noticing, takes multiple photos constantly while it is open (do not fear for your storage, until you shoot the final photo and processed, nothing is saved). This allows, when we take a photo with zoom, they can be combined to obtain a final in more detail.
When to use this app. Everything looks great with Indigo, until you wonder how it is possible that a mobile can take 32 photos and process them without flinching. It is not so easy. This application puts the iPhone to work to the fullest, which can cause it to hot, especially in summer. Despite this, if you have time to take a good photo (it takes a few seconds to process) and want to escape that mobile look, this camera is practically perfect.
His own developers consider it as an experimental camera app, and in their first phase of development it will be completely free. It is compatible with all iPhone from 12, and it is planned to end up landing on Android soon. Despite being experimental app, it has a great future ahead. Its developers claim that they want to load it with personalized looks, computational video functions, and improvements they show in the potential of well -applied computational photography.
Image | Xataka
In Xataka | Best iPhone. Which to buy in 2025 and recommended models based on budget, tastes and quality price
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings