GoKawiilIf you have an iPhone and want to customize the look of your photos, you don't need to install any additional apps or rely on basic Instagram and Snapchat filters. In 2024, Apple introduced its next-generation Photographic Styles with the iPhone 16 series, aiming to give you more creative freedom. All new iPhones, including the iPhone Air, support this feature, yet few people know about it.
Unlike regular app-based filters that apply across an entire image, the Photographic Styles feature intelligently adjusts specific colors across different parts of your photo. It gives you precise control over tones and colors with easy-to-use sliders, letting you create a personalized look and feel. You can apply a style before capturing a shot and see the preview in your viewfinder or adjust it later from the Photos app.
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The latest Photographic Styles are smarter and customizable
You get plenty of customization options to choose from. Prakhar Khanna/CNET
The latest generation of Photographic Styles can uniquely make out the depths of an image. For example, unlike a traditional filter, it can more accurately render your skin undertones and separate them from the background. Depending on the Style in use, changes in tone and color are then applied to your skin, but not uniformly to the space behind you.
In an interview with PetaPixel, Apple's Chief Aesthetics Scientist for Camera and Photos, Pamela Chen, said that even if two people had the same skin tone, "they can have genuinely different preferred renderings of themselves in pictures."
Skin tone varies for everyone, and it's hard to render because it's also deeply personal. "Photography has always been a medium that requires precision and artistry," Chen said. It's not only about the physics of rendering skin tone and other colors accurately, but having the "artistry to capture the realm of your preference."
Enlarge Image Standard shot (left) versus amber Photographic Style applied (right). Prakhar Khanna/CNET
While editing photos for this story, I realized that's absolutely true. In the selfies above, I wanted my skin to have a pink-gold tone because the standard style looks flat. I applied the same settings to another photo and didn't like the look. I'm glad Apple gives you plenty of options to play with the undertones and mood of an image.
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