Adobe has quietly released a new camera app for iPhone users called Project Indigo. What’s interesting? It’s built by the same team that helped shape Google’s iconic Pixel camera. This new app is designed for people who want more control over how their photos look—less “smartphone-style,” more natural, like images from a DSLR.
The app is available as a free download on the App Store and doesn’t even require you to sign in. For now, it works only on iPhones—specifically, Pro models from iPhone 12 onwards, and non-Pro models starting with iPhone 14.
Most smartphone cameras today process your photos heavily—they brighten shadows, smooth out details, sharpen edges, and oversaturate colours. While that can make images pop on your phone screen, they can often look overly edited or artificial on larger displays. Project Indigo takes a different route. It aims for a more realistic look with subtle processing. It reduces excessive sharpening and colour boosting, offering a closer-to-DSLR experience. The result? More natural textures and tones.
Project Indigo: What Does It Offer?
If you’ve ever wanted more control over your iPhone camera, Indigo delivers. It offers manual controls for focus, shutter speed, ISO, white balance, and even lets you tweak white balance temperature and tint separately. There are two main modes—Photo and Night. In Night mode, the app uses longer exposures and frame stacking to reduce noise and motion blur. Ideal for low-light shots or capturing motion like city lights or waterfalls.
What’s more, it captures up to 32 frames per image using computational photography. These are aligned and combined into one final photo, which helps reduce blown highlights and improve detail in shadows—without relying too much on noise-reduction filters.
One standout feature is Indigo’s multi-frame super-resolution zoom. Instead of digitally enlarging the centre of the image (which often causes blurriness), the app captures and merges multiple frames for sharper results when you zoom in.
If you’re into photo editing, Indigo integrates neatly with Lightroom Mobile. You can tap any photo in the app’s gallery to open and edit it directly in Lightroom—whether it’s a JPEG or raw DNG file. Adobe says it’s working on a live preview feature, where users can see the final edited look before they even click the shutter. Also, an Android version is on the roadmap, though there’s no release date yet.
Get latest Tech and Auto news from Techlusive on our WhatsApp Channel, Facebook, X (Twitter), Instagram and YouTube.
