Over sharpening photos post processing | iPhone 12 Pro Max

Folks, I believe I found the evil. 

After hours of testing and spending money on 3rd party camera apps, I discovered following:

-       The images don’t look over post-processed after transferring to Mac

-       When watching the images on iPhone with 3rd party viewer apps, the photographs also look OK

-       Images shot with 3rd party camera apps look OK in the related camera app, but when viewed with iPhone Photos app, they show the same strange sharpness and overexposure

These brought me to the conclusion that not the iPhone camera, but in fact the iPhone Photos app causes this issue.

And voilà: go to “Settings” - “Photos” - turn off “View Full HDR” and the nightmare is over.

Cheers!

I’ve just bought a new iPhone 12 (haven’t got it yet) even though I knew about this issue with Apple’s processing. I read an interesting article from the makers of Halide which kinda explains it… and also suggests we’re not going to see the end of it anytime soon.

https://lux.camera/iphone-12-camera-review/

I’ll be using NOMO for a while, I think.

Yes! Noticing the same thing and honestly the photos look really edited and not natural at all. I was hoping there was a setting to turn it off or decrease the sharpening in the edit functionality. But neither is possible. After being on Android for a few years I made the switch back to iPhone 12 and disappointed with the camera.

Yes, i am noticing that to on my girlfriends iphone 12 pro max. It adds a clearly visible sharpening, giving the images a oversharpend look. This would be fine if you were able to adjust after would, or turn it off (preferably).

Personally really dislike over sharpend photos, they give it a cheap, digital look. Seeming the camera is one of the main reasons of upgrading an iphone, it is a great disappointment. We appreciate if someone from apple could give a reply on this thread. A future update to adjust this initial post processing, or a sort of legacy mode to give it the more subtle post processing of the X.

the slightly greenish hue of the screen is another problem, but not as bad as the sharpening.

Yes. Just got the 12, I’m a professional photographer and artist and this algorithm is really intense on the sharpening. Such a bummer. I don’t know what to do as I got this just for the camera. Apple Team- help! Give us a way to choose our own level of sharpening!

Ya’ll are supposed to know better!!

I have the exactly the same observation. I previously had an iPhone X and just upgraded to iPhone 12 Pro Max- I took some shots of my dog in the park today (using the 1x lens) and I was quite disappointed with the amount of sharpening applied. It made the photos look far to ‘digital’ the photos from the iPhone X where far more pleasing. After looking forward to the arrival of my new phone, I was quite disappointed. I hope Apple apply an update and either tone down the sharpening or provide the opportunity to turn it off (or down). Maybe the upcoming Raw release will help, but I was hoping for good (JPEG) shots right out of the phone. I am going to experiment some more with the HEIF format.

I’ve also downloaded the Halide app to see if I can get some better results.

I agree with your observations. From initial samples of the new ProRaw on the web, it appears that the sharpening is partially or mostly removed. I don't have my iPhone 12 max yet to verify that. If I get fed up enough I often apply a small amount of negative Clarity slider in Lightroom on the iPhone and that does help.

I'm having the same issues! I didn't notice it at first... figured it was just the new screen was showing more vibrant colors, but the last week or so it's really stood out. I've taken pics in the middle of the day and dusk and both times, the pics are either over exposed, adding blueish hues to areas that aren't blue and made a sunset insanely red orange. It looks photoshopped.

Same for me. I’ve taken just a few photos with my new iPhone 12 Pro Max and have already noticed they’re horribly over sharpened, especially the standard format files, making them really muddy looking, especially around details, water and foliage. Not as much on the Raw files (I’m on the 14.3 beta now) I don’t think, but it’s still definitely there on them. I preferred the HIEF/JPEG files from my previous iPhone XS 😕

The exact same is happening to me too!

tried taking a pic of my Christmas dinner and When I click the new image preview square, the image looks fine for about 2 seconds before the auto-processing kicks in and whitewashes/over-defines/over-clarifies my picture.

ive tried turning HDR and auto-night mode off etc. And still the same!! It’s absolute trash and I regret upgrading from my iPhone 8 Plus

Same problem here as well. I was on a nice Christmas Eve hike and I noticed the post-processing after clicking on the thumbnail occurring a few seconds later. At first, I thought it was the auto HDR so I turned it off and I got the same result. I much prefer the image prior to the over sharpening and blown out tones.

I agree. My temporary solution is to shoot in proraw, edit in LR on the iPhone, the generate a jpg and delete the very large DNG. I really minimize the sharpening and think I get the equivalent of the Apple jpg without the crustiness of their oversharpening. Good result but too much work. Thought about doing this with the Photos app but seems like the Lr route is easier and more controllable for me.

Same thing happens on iPhone 12. Unfortunately I cannot use the ProRaw feature so I'm stuck with this. Would really like to be able to disable this or tone this down in camera options. In this state, photos look really really bad.

I bought a new iPad Air 4 recently and have been frankly horrified by the over-sharpening I get there. I'm still using an old iPhone 6, which I prefer to the iPad even for a photo of a paper invoice. I'm sad to see this is an issue with the new iPhones as well. I really hope Apple can back off with this.