Find answers to the most common questions about Project Indigo.
Indigo is a camera app, but it is different from most camera apps. With a custom computational photography pipeline, a more natural image look, and a full set of manual camera controls, it offers something for professional and casual photographers alike. In addition, we are introducing new controls for computational cameras for the first time and offering a glimpse into the future of AI image processing on our Technology Previews page.
We are making Indigo available on iPhone as a free mobile app from Adobe Labs to share our progress and get feedback from the community. For more information about the technologies used to build Project Indigo, visit the Indigo blog.
If you have a question to ask or any feedback to share, come and engage with the Project Indigo Community. We would love to hear from you.
Photo mode is intended for everyday use in good lighting and has zero shutter lag, meaning it captures the moment you wanted. In this mode, the app constantly captures camera images, using short exposure times to minimize motion blur. When you press the shutter button, it aligns and merges several of these images to reduce noise.
Night mode is intended for use in low light. In this mode images are captured after you press the shutter button (so with some shutter lag), but use longer exposure times, minimizing noise. To reduce motion blur in this mode, try to hold still (the pro controls shake-o-meter will help you). Better yet, brace the phone on an object or attach it to a tripod. Night mode employs Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), which helps reduce motion blur, but may cause your photo to have a slightly different field of view than what you see through the viewfinder, especially at high zoom levels.
When you tap the shutter button, Indigo aligns and combines multiple images. We combine more frames than other camera apps, so we produce an image with higher dynamic range and lower noise. However, this processing takes a few seconds, and we recommend not switching to other apps or the home screen until the processing is completed.
Avoid switching to the native camera app during processing, or you might lose a shot due to an iOS limitation.
If you launch Indigo but the camera doesn't seem to work and the viewfinder is only showing a black image, try the following troubleshooting steps:
Fully close the Indigo app (not just pause) and launch the native camera app. If the native app shows the viewfinder, try launching Indigo again.
Reboot the device, and if needed, repeat step 1.
In Photo mode you can tap the shutter button multiple times, but processing may back up and take a while to complete, especially on older phones or in hot weather. If you tap too many times the shutter button will gray out, forcing you to wait.
Indigo camera requests a constant stream of raw frames from the camera module while the viewfinder is running and stores them in a temporary buffer. When a shutter button is pressed, we combine several of those frames into one photo, and we issue a shutter sound. However, in Japan and South Korea, for every raw photo request to iOS, the system issues a shutter sound, even if that raw frame isn't used for the capture. That is why our viewfinder sounds like it's constantly "capturing" photos. We are working with Apple to try and find a solution to this problem.
In Night mode the shutter button grays out after you press it, and you must wait at least until capture has finished before tapping again. The rotating blue circle around the shutter button indicates that it is actively capturing frames. If the capture is long, you can cancel it by pressing on the shutter button when it is displaying a ‘stop’ square.
Indigo has a button for each lens on your phone, labeled with its optical magnification (0.5×, 1×, and 5× for iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max), plus additional buttons whose magnifications are implemented by cropping the sensor and applying digital scaling (2× and 10× for 16 Pro models). You can also pinch-zoom to obtain other magnifications, which similarly use digital scaling.
When using 2x or more digital zoom (for example, when capturing with 2x or 10x on the iPhone 16 Pro device), Indigo performs multi-frame super-resolution. This improves the quality of digital scaling without hallucinating missing details. You can disable super-resolution from the camera settings. For older devices, this is disabled by default as it is computationally intensive.
- If you pause the app while an SR capture is being processed, you may lose the photo as iOS may reallocate the hardware resources needed for processing to other apps.
- If Long Exposure mode is activated, then SR processing will be disabled.
Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS) makes captures at higher zoom levels easier by stabilizing the viewfinder and reducing shake caused by unsteady hands. This feature is especially useful when using the telephoto lens.
- When EIS is enabled on the 5× telephoto lens, the field of view loses 10%.
- After moving the device, EIS may take a few seconds to stabilize, during which time you may notice a small drift in the viewfinder. This only affects the framing in the viewfinder and has no impact on image quality.
In situations where your camera lens is too close to the subject and you cannot achieve good focus, Indigo will show a suggestion to either move back or select the button to enter Macro mode. If you are using the telephoto lens, entering macro mode will switch to the main (wide) lens, but keep the same field of view (using digital zooming). If you are too close for even this lens, we will suggest you switch again, to the ultra-wide lens. Again, you'll keep the same field of view (using more digital zooming). When in macro mode, the app will display only one zoom button, indicating your current magnification, and it will display a macro mode button at left, badged with the name of the lens you are actually using, Since macro mode involves strong digital zooming, we will employ multi-frame super-resolution to restore lost detail, and the zoom button will display the SR badge. But at least you'll be in focus. Select either button to exit from this special mode.
If you are too close to the subject, the camera may not be able to detect that it is out of focus and the macro mode switch suggestion may not be shown. To rectify this, move your device a bit away from the subject until the suggestion is shown.
Photos produced by Indigo employ computational photography and AI to produce a natural (SLR-like) look for your photos, including special (but gentle) treatment of subjects and skies. This processing takes time, so we use Apple's hardware pipeline to provide the live viewfinder. The screen shows the scene in front of the camera with minimal lag, but the colors and tones only approximate the final photograph.
If you press on the information area above the viewfinder, you can change which information is shown. The histogram represents raw sensor data. The histogram represents raw sensor data. For Night mode, the exposure time and ISO are for the planned capture, not the live viewfinder.
If you swipe left, on the second page, you will find the ancillary tools like a timer, composition grids, a level indicator, and an overexposure warning (zebra striping). This is also where you will find the global camera Settings page.
Overexposure warning and the histogram are based on raw frames, not on the video stream shown in the viewfinder. This makes them accurate but introduces a small latency when the scene changes.
Tapping on the thumbnail image below the viewfinder brings you to a strip showing the photos (but not videos) on your camera roll. Below the strip are options for sharing or deleting your photo. The Lightroom icon will take you to the Lightroom mobile app, if installed, with the current photo ready for editing. Finally, the flask icon lets you play with new technologies we are building in the lab, including removing window reflections. Try it!
When you view a photo in the filmstrip, it is displayed in high dynamic range (HDR), with bright highlights and brilliant colors. If you long-press on the photo, you can see a standard dynamic range (SDR) version. If you share your photo, which version (SDR or HDR) your recipient sees depends on their phone, browser, or social media app.
- Display headroom may be reduced if your device is overheating. In that case, please let the device cool down before continuing to use Indigo.
- Display headroom may also be reduced if your device is in low power mode.
By default, Indigo saves JPEG+DNG for each photo. Both files contain our SDR and HDR looks and will be indicated by an 'HDR' badge in the filmstrip. The looks in our JPEGs are slightly brighter than in our DNGs, to improve visibility on small screens.
If you edit your photo in Lightroom, you will be working with the DNG, which provides more latitude for adjusting tones and colors and tends to create fewer blown-out highlights. If you edit in Apple Photos or another app, you will likely be working with the JPEG.
All Indigo JPEGs are captured with 12MP resolution, even if we have to counter the cropping of the 12MP sensor by using digital scaling. If SR processing is enabled, it will bear part of the upscaling burden, which helps recover some of the lost quality caused by cropping.
For DNGs, the final resolution can vary depending on the situation:
All DNGs captured with SR enabled and with no digital zoom (for example, 0.5×, 1×, and 5× on iPhone 16 Pro), or with 2× digital zoom (2× and 10× on iPhone 16 Pro) are 12MP.
All DNGs captured with SR enabled and with digital zoom between 1× and 2×, or with digital zoom larger than 2×, are less than 12MP (left plot below).
If Long Exposure is activated of if SR processing is disabled, DNG resolution when digitally zooming in at 2× and beyond will be lowered (right plot below).
Project Indigo does not yet manage photos stored in iCloud. If you notice the iCloud badge in the Indigo filmstrip, you can force the original photo to be downloaded by clicking on the ‘share’ icon, or you can go to Apple Photos and download the photo from there. In the future, we will be adding the ability to better manage iCloud assets.
Pro controls
Pressing this icon brings up buttons that allow manual control over focus, exposure time and ISO, exposure compensation, and white balance. Dismissing the Pro controls reverts to automatic camera operation, and your chosen manual settings will not be applied to subsequent captures.
Pro controls: focus
The easiest way to use manual focus is to tap on the object you want the camera to focus on while the focus Pro control is open. The camera will auto-focus in that region of interest and then lock focus. To verify that you achieved the focus you want, you can enable the optional magnified loupe.
Pro controls: exposure
Exposure controls include two sliders: for shutter speed and camera gain (ISO). You can adjust only one of those, in which case the camera runs in a sort of priority mode: the second parameter will be adjusted automatically based on the camera’s auto-exposure algorithm and your manually selected parameter.
Exposure controls don't support tapping on the screen to measure and lock exposure. We are working on making this available in an upcoming release.
Pro controls: exposure compensation
If you do not want to take manual control of the exact exposure parameters, but you want to guide camera’s auto-exposure algorithm toward getting brighter or darker results, use the exposure compensation slider.
When both shutter speed and ISO are set to manual, exposure compensation will be disabled because the auto-exposure algorithm is not active.
Pro controls: white balance
White balance Pro controls offer two sliders: for color temperature and for tint. Typically, only the color temperature is needed, and there are shortcut icons for common lighting scenarios. Additionally, you can set white balance by tapping on an object in the scene known to be neutral gray. To help you with that, open the gray card wheel as a reference (left of the temperature and tint sliders).
Pro controls: computational controls
Unique to Indigo are manual controls over the number of frames captured and merged per shutter button press, and how the frames are merged. These controls are only available in Night mode. More frames means lower noise but a longer time to capture and process the photo. Normally the captured frames are aligned before merging, and the final photo represents a single moment in time. There is also a 'Long exposure' option, which merges without alignment, creating an effect similar to a single long exposure. If your phone is on a tripod, you can use this mode to produce water-into-silk and similar effects.
When capturing subjects like moving cars at night with ‘Long exposure’ enabled, the resulting light trails may not be continuous because the individual frames are not always captured back-to-back.
To launch Project Indigo from the lock screen, you can:
Add the Lock Screen widget.
Make Indigo an Action Button shortcut (if available).
Add a shortcut in the Control Center.
Set it as the Lock Screen camera.
- On some devices, the widget and the Action Button shortcut may load Indigo faster than the other two methods.
- Regardless of the Lock Screen launching mechanism, Indigo will require authentication to operate (e.g., via FaceID).
