Project Indigo: Adobe releases free advanced computational photography camera app for iPhone

Project Indigo is a new, free computational photography camera app for iPhone from Adobe
Adobe has unveiled Project Indigo, an innovative camera app designed exclusively for iPhone users, marking a significant leap in mobile photography. Developed by Adobe Labs, this free app harnesses advanced computational photography techniques to deliver high-quality images with a natural, SLR-like aesthetic. Available for iPhone 12 Pro and later models, with optimal performance on iPhone 15 Pro and newer, Project Indigo stands out by combining multiple frames—up to 32—to reduce noise and enhance dynamic range, all while offering full manual controls over settings like exposure, ISO, and focus. Integrated with Lightroom for seamless editing and featuring experimental AI tools, this app promises to redefine smartphone photography for both casual and professional users.
Adobe:
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As Adobe explores ways to evolve mobile photography, and in order to address some of these gaps, we have developed a camera app we call Project Indigo. Today, we are releasing this for iPhone as a free mobile app from Adobe Labs, available in the Apple App Store – to share our progress and get feedback from the community. The app offers full manual controls, a more natural (“SLR-like”) look, and the highest image quality that computational photography can provide – in both JPEG and raw formats. It also introduces some new photographic experiences not available in other camera apps.
What’s different about computational photography using Indigo? First, we under-expose more strongly than most cameras. Second, we capture, align, and combine more frames when producing each photo – up to 32 frames as in the example above. This means that our photos have fewer blown-out highlights and less noise in the shadows. Taking a photo with our app may require slightly more patience after pressing the shutter button than you’re used to, but after a few seconds you’ll be rewarded with a better picture.
As a side benefit of these two strategies, we need less spatial denoising (i.e. smoothing) than most camera apps. This means we preserve more natural textures. In fact, we bias our processing towards minimal smoothing, even if this means leaving a bit of noise in the photo. You can see these effects in the example photos later in this article.
One more thing. Many of our users prefer to shoot raw, not JPEGs, and they want these raw images to benefit from computational photography. (Some big cameras offer the ability to capture bursts of images and combine them in-camera, but they output a JPEG, not a raw file.) Indigo can output JPEG or raw files that benefit equally from the computational photography strategy outlined here.

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MacDailyNews Note: The Project Indigo app is free as part of Adobe Labs. The app runs on all Pro and Pro Max iPhones starting with iPhone series 12, and on all non-Pro iPhones starting from series 14. (That said, the app does some pretty heavy computing, so you’ll have a better experience on a newer iPhone.) It requires no Adobe sign-on at present and can be downloaded from the Apple App Store here.
More info and many sample images via Adobe here.

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