This new application, named Project Indigo, was launched last week by Adobe Labs. It is free to download for iPhone models including the iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max, iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max, and all iPhone 14 devices and above. Adobe recommends using it with an iPhone 15 Pro or newer for the best experience, and there’s no requirement to log in with an Adobe account to operate the app.

As detailed in the app’s description, “Instead of taking a single photo, Indigo captures a sequence of photos and merges them to produce a high-quality image with reduced noise and enhanced dynamic range.” The app aims to deliver a natural, “SLR-like” aesthetic for photographs and provides various manual controls, including options for focus, shutter speed, ISO, and white balance.

To really understand what’s going on under the hood of Project Indigo, though, I highly recommend reading a detailed blog post from Levoy, now an Adobe Fellow who joined the company in 2020 to build a “universal camera app,” and Florian Kainz, a senior scientist. The post covers things like why smartphone cameras are good, how its computational photography works, how it creates the natural look for its photos, and some details about its image processing pipeline.

It is here I must confess that I am not a camera expert by any means. But even I found the post pretty interesting and informative. The photos in the post do look great, and Adobe has an album of photos you can browse, too.

In the post, Levoy and Kainz say that Project Indigo will also be a testbed for technologies that might get added to other flagship products, like a button to remove reflections. And down the line, the team plans to build things like an Android version, a portrait mode, and even video recording.

“This is the beginning of a journey for Adobe – towards an integrated mobile camera and editing experience that takes advantage of the latest advances in computational photography and AI,” according to Levoy and Kainz. “Our hope is that Indigo will appeal to casual mobile photographers who want a natural SLR-like look for their photos, including when viewed on large screens; to advanced photographers who want manual control and the highest possible image quality; and to anyone – casual or serious – who enjoys playing with new photographic experiences.”