Use “Photographic Styles” to Customize the Look of Photos on Your IPhone Before You Take Them.
Many of us are iPhone users, which means many of us take photos with Apple cameras. That’s not a bad thing—the iPhone has great cameras, after all—but it means all our photos end up looking pretty much the same. You might even start to dislike that particular style due to the extra CGI photography Apple adds to each one. Personally, I don’t like that the photos on my iPhone are too sharp, oversaturated and lack shadows.
There are several ways to customize the look of photos you take on your iPhone, but one of the simplest (and least used) methods is to use Photographic Styles. While this feature works on iPhone 13 and later, if you have the new iPhone 16 or iPhone 16 Pro, you have a big advantage: With these new iPhones, Apple has updated the existing Photo Styles feature to give users more control over how their photos look. . look. If you don’t mind spending a couple of minutes honing your personal photography style, you’ll likely be much happier with your photos in the future compared to Apple’s default settings.
What are photographic styles?
Photo Styles were first introduced with the iPhone 13 series and subsequently became available on the iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 series. It’s Apple’s own take on photo filters, but instead of applying the effect while editing, you preview them in real time as you take the photo. Once linked, the filter is baked into the resulting image.
The main appeal of photographic styles is to personalize the look of your iPhone’s camera, rather than adopting Apple’s default style. When I first started using it on my iPhone 13, I loved the Rich Contrast style, which gave my images the high-contrast look of a Pixel phone. There are five styles in total on these iPhones: Standard, High Contrast, Vivid, Warm, and Cool.
If you’re using iPhone 13 to iPhone 15, you can go to Settings > Camera > Photo Styles to see a preview of all the filters and also choose one to use in the Camera app. From here, go to the Camera app, swipe up to open the expanded menu, and select the Photographic Styles button (three stacked squares) to open presets. You can switch between all the presets and adjust the Tone and Warmth settings for each to suit your needs.
Since the filters are built-in, once you take a photo in, say, a bold style, there’s no going back. However, Apple designed this feature so that it can be used every time. You can choose to shoot with a warm filter for one photo shoot, but the next time you return to the Camera app, you’ll revert to the default style and have to manually select the photographic style again. However, if you want your photographic style to become the new default, you can do so by going to Settings > Camera > Save Settings > Photo Styles . Once you select a style here, it will be active every time you open the camera.
What’s New in Photographic Styles on iPhone 16
With the release of iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro, photographic styles received a huge upgrade, making them more polished than on older iPhones. Here’s what’s new:
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There’s a new wizard in the Settings app that lets you choose a style that suits you and make it the default for all your photos.
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There are 15 styles to choose from instead of five. Too many to list, but worth checking out the styles: Amber, Gold, Rose Gold, Quiet, Ethereal, Vivid and Stark B&W.
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Along with tone, you can also adjust the color of the image as well as the intensity of the preset.
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This feature now uses a touchpad where you move your finger to select the photo look you want. It’s much more intuitive than fiddling with complex photo settings.
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These photos are now non-destructive ( if you shoot in HEIF ). So, if you have a photographic style that suits most photos, you can easily switch it back if you don’t like the look of a particular photo.
In my opinion, it’s worth taking some time to figure out what your photographic style is in Episode 16, as you’ll probably like the photos you take better in the future.
Create your own default photographic style
Creating your own photographic style is easy, whether you want something dramatic like the Vivid or Gold styles, or a tweaked version of the standard set with a setting that lets you boost shadows with less saturation.
Open the Settings app, go to Camera and select Photo Styles . Then click the Get Started button. Apple will ask you to select four of your most recent favorite photos to see their changes and adjustments in real time. You can explore colorful styles such as Amber and Gold, as well as monochrome styles (there are 15 styles in total). If you don’t like the style but want to correct the tones and colors, stick with the standard style and move on to the next step. Once you find a preset you like, click Continue .
The new part of this feature allows you to control the tone and color of the photo using the touch panel, which you can use to customize the photo as you wish. The Y-axis (top to bottom) represents tonal range, which is the difference between the lightest and darkest parts of the image (contrast). The X-axis (from left to right) is color range or saturation. This is the intensity of color in photographs.
Below you will find a slider that allows you to adjust the strength and intensity of the filter. Play with this a little and you can create a unique look that differs from traditional iPhone style photography. Helpful tip: Even if you don’t play with filters, just reduce the tone to -0.7 to enhance the shadows in the standard preset. Trust me.
From here, click Save Tone and Color . The photographic style you configured is now the default option. So, whenever you open the Camera app on your iPhone 16, you’ll be shooting in your own personal style.
Use photographic styles in the Camera app
If you don’t want your photographic style to be the default, you can use it at any time for just a couple of photos directly from the Camera app.
Open the Camera app and tap the new Touchpad icon in the top right corner (the new icon with a square outline and dots inside). This will open the Photographic Styles interface in real time from the camera. You’ll see a familiar setup if you followed the wizard in the section above. You can scroll through the styles and choose the one you like. You can then use the touchpad to hone your look. Again, move up and down to change the tone, and left to right to change the color. You can then use the slider to adjust the intensity.
Now, as long as you are in the Camera app, your chosen settings will be applied. If you want to make it your default style, follow the steps in the section above.