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When Adobe released the Indigo Project Application Earlier this year, it brought a new level of professional camera settings to iPhone. Sure, the cameras on newer iPhone models take great photos, but they’re still mostly designed for anyone to take quick photos and get great results.
But in the two months ago iPhone 17 Pro It captured our attention — and hundreds of photos, By itself And also compare it to Android phones like Galaxy S25 Ultra and Pixel 10 Pro – We’ve made Indigo blue with no iPhone 17 support.
Now, on the cusp of the annual Adobe Max event, the app works with the iPhone 17 series – but only the rear cameras for now. The front camera will be supported by a new design with a square sensor and Apple’s Center Stage reframing technology iOS 26.1 Released, which fixes a compatibility bug.
The instant shutter allowed me to capture this bird at just the right moment.
The Project Indigo app provides precise control over camera settings such as white balance and shutter speed while providing AI-based features such as 10x zoom upscaling and noise removal and reflection removal tools.
the The application is now available for iPhoneLike an enthusiastic photographer, I took it for a quick spin around Edinburgh on the iPhone 16 Pro.
I love this first shot of a bird flying down the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. You’ve benefited from two advantages here. First, the manual white balance allowed me to warm up the scene a bit, as I often find the iPhone’s default camera app leans on the cool side. I love the tones captured here. Second, the app features a zero-lag shutter feature, which allowed me to quickly capture the moment when the bird was perfectly aligned with the church tower.
It’s a difficult shot to pull off, but the lack of delay between pressing the shutter button and taking the photo is what makes the difference. Adobe says It achieves this by “continuously capturing raw images while the viewfinder is on,” meaning the photo has technically already been taken when the button is pressed. For those of you who want to capture high-drama shots of soccer games or your dog jumping to catch a Frisbee, a zero-lag shutter is a blessing.
Image captured at 10x optical zoom with noise reduction applied within the Adobe Indigo app.
While the iPhone’s basic optical zoom maxes out at 5x, Adobe’s Indigo app lets you zoom digitally at better quality. Using artificial intelligence and combining multiple frames to upscale those images, it preserves more detail than just zooming to 10x in the regular camera app. I used it here and was impressed with the overall clarity of the scene.
The difference in sharpness between the original image (right) and the AI Denoise version (left) isn’t immediately obvious, but it helps give the scene more clarity overall.
I also ran the app’s AI Denoise tool on the image. Although there wasn’t a lot of noise in the image initially, the tool had the added benefit of sharpening the image, which really helped bring some extra fine detail to the grass blades and tree bark. I was impressed here, as the image doesn’t look overly digitally sharp, which can often be the case with these types of gadgets. Instead, the image looks surprisingly natural and clear for a zoomed-in shot.
However, he doesn’t always seem to do a good job.
I actually prefer the shot from the iPhone’s default camera app (left) here to the Indigo version (right).
The image from the iPhone’s built-in Camera app with 10x digital zoom (left) looks sharper here, with better contrast for a richer image. The same scene captured at 10x zoom with the Indigo (right) looks very low in contrast and flat in comparison.
I like the natural tones in this straight out-of-camera photo.
But this is not necessarily a bad thing in general. In fact, I found that many of my test images were natural-looking, with realistic shadows, highlights, and colors. Phone software can often make photos look overly processed, especially on different phones that try to soften the shadows too much (I’m looking at you, OnePlus 13), but the images Indigo produces have great balance, even without any Lightroom editing after capture.
Speaking of which, it’s no surprise that Indigo, being an Adobe product, makes it easy to share an image directly to Adobe Lightroom for further editing. Raw DNG files are generally easy to work with (HDR editing must be enabled, and using profiles seems to instantly remove any highlights), though the file itself didn’t look as good when I opened it in Google’s free Snapseed editor. There will likely be early compatibility issues, and I expect this will improve over time.
Watch this: One month later: The iPhone 17 Pro debuts again
Adobe Indigo for iPhone: Should you use it?
I’ve enjoyed using Indigo and look forward to spending more time with it. It certainly offers deeper functionality over Apple’s default camera app, particularly the ability to adjust white balance and other settings. I also appreciate the natural look that photos provide and the editing flexibility in Lightroom. Then there are broader features like noise reduction, reflection reduction, and night mode, which I haven’t tried yet.
Using the Indigo as a camera means sacrificing Apple features like Live Photos and Photography Modes, which are great for adding a cinematic look to your photos.
It was easy to add my own color grade to this raw file in Adobe Lightroom.
I also don’t like having to use a separate camera app, especially when I’m switching between taking still photos and videos which is easier to do when using the default camera. In an ideal world, I’d like to see Adobe work directly with Apple to implement these features into the core camera experience.
But still, if you’re an avid photographer and want to have more control over your images while shooting, Indigo is definitely worth installing and playing with. Although talking to Adobe CNET about implementing it again in 2022it’s still best considered to be in beta (the company calls it an “experimental camera app”) with features like Creative Looks, photo modes, and even advanced tools like exposure and focus correction likely on the cards for future updates. An Android version is also “definitely” on the table.
Since it’s currently free to use and doesn’t require signing in with an Adobe subscription, it’s worth a try.