Adobe releases free iPhone camera app developed by the creators of the Google Pixel camera

If you’ve ever found your iPhone photos looking a little too bright, overly smooth, or simply artificial, Adobe may have the solution you’ve been waiting for. Enter Project Indigo, a new free camera app now available on the App Store. Created by Adobe Labs and developed by the same talented team behind the renowned Google Pixel camera, Indigo promises to bring iPhone users a more authentic and manual photography experience — one that feels closer to shooting with a DSLR camera.

Let’s break down what makes Adobe Project Indigo stand out and why it could become a game-changer for iPhone photography enthusiasts.

What Makes Project Indigo Different?

Today’s smartphone cameras rely heavily on computational processing. Your device’s camera app often automatically:

• Brightens dark areas

• Smooths skin textures

• Boosts colors

• Sharpens details

While this can help pictures look vibrant on small screens, it often leads to photos that appear over-processed or unnatural when viewed on larger displays.

Adobe’s Project Indigo takes a different approach. The app is designed to produce images that look true-to-life. Instead of excessive smoothing, sharpening, or bold color manipulation, Indigo focuses on delivering natural tones and textures — closer to what you would capture on a professional camera.

Manual Controls for Photography Enthusiasts

One of the standout features of Project Indigo is the level of manual control it offers iPhone users. With Indigo, you can fine-tune various camera settings, including:

• Focus

• Shutter speed

• ISO

• White balance

Additionally, the app allows you to shoot in JPEG or RAW (DNG) formats, giving photographers more flexibility during editing. Users can also choose how many frames to capture per shot. This is important because Indigo’s advanced computational system can combine up to 32 frames into a single image — significantly reducing noise and preserving fine details.

Superior Low-Light and Long Exposure Capabilities

For those who love night photography or experimenting with motion, Indigo has you covered. The app features:

• Night Mode: Automatically suggests longer exposure times for clearer shots in low-light conditions.

• Long Exposure Mode: Enables users to capture artistic motion blur, ideal for scenes like flowing waterfalls or city lights at night.

These features help users create photos that go beyond standard smartphone snapshots.

Smarter Zoom With Multi-Frame Super Resolution

Zooming in with your phone’s camera often leads to blurry or noisy results. But Adobe Project Indigo tackles this common problem with multi-frame super-resolution technology. When you pinch to zoom, Indigo captures multiple images and intelligently merges them to produce sharper, more detailed photos — without relying on artificial enhancements.

Seamless Integration With Adobe Lightroom

Since Indigo is part of the Adobe ecosystem, it naturally integrates with Lightroom Mobile. After capturing your shots, you can open your images in Lightroom directly from Indigo’s gallery with a single tap. Whether you’re editing a JPEG or a RAW file, this integration ensures a smooth, professional workflow for those who already use Adobe’s suite of editing tools.

A Glimpse Into the Future: Live Editing Preview

Adobe is also working on an exciting upcoming feature for Project Indigo — a live editing preview. This would allow users to see the final look of their edited photo directly in the viewfinder before they even press the shutter button. Such innovation could transform how photographers compose their shots on mobile devices.

Project Indigo Availability

At launch, Project Indigo is free to download and available exclusively for iPhone users. It’s designed for photography enthusiasts looking for more control and realism in their mobile photography, without the typical smartphone image processing that can sometimes feel overdone.