iPhone 12 Pro Max Photo Auto Enhance

I figured this out for my iPhone 11. It was automatically enhancing photos and seemed to be overexposing shots, sometimes with a message that said “preparing photo.” I had turned off the HDR setting in Camera settings, and that did not fix the problem. But then I noticed that in addition to Camera settings, there is also a tab for Photo settings. I looked in there, and there is a *second* HDR setting that was turned on. I turned that one off, and was able to take a photo without getting the ugly enhancement. Yay!

Yeah you are correct the HDR viewing settings isn’t the issue - it’s the post-processing algorithm itself, dubbed “Deep Fusion” by Apple that they introduced with iPhone 11. The engineers have gone over the top with the autocorrection and enhancement.

if you download Halide and shoot in raw, you can turn off deep fusion. That’s the only app I’ve found where there is a literal option to turn it off.

I already returned mine. I’m going to wait for the 13 + iOS 15 in the hope some of this is addressed (lol).

I am on the 13 Pro Max now with same exact issues. It’s apple’s “deep fusion” algorithm, not a hardware issue.

my solution is to use HALIDE, third part camera app, which allows you to turn off the deep fusion post processing.

Turn off the this ‘View Full HDR’ in Settings>Photos>View Full HDR and the issue will be resolved.

I think it happens when in low light and the automatic night time exposure correction comes on (the crescent moon icon ). If you turn that off and save your settings, it should stop happening. I have to agree it’s a really irritating feature. Hope this helps.

I just came up with a roundabout solution to this issue. If you take a photo with ‘live photo’ on, then go into the photos app and change the ‘key photo’ to a different point within the live photo, it won’t “auto-enhance” the frame that you switched over to. Thus avoiding the auto enhance feature and having the original, unedited photo. Hope this helps!

I FIGURED IT OUT, go to settings then Photos, then turn off “View Full HDR”, I tested it and it works.

Have you turned the night time auto enhance off and then saved settings? If you don’t save settings the auto enhance comes back on for the next photo. A real pain. I have managed to get rid of the enhance on mine- turned all features off, turned off auto flash, auto enhance etc and then saved settings. I prefer to take photos without a flash anyway and can always turn on if needed.

I have found using the portrait mode also helps with faces- less harsh.

shame we can’t go to an Apple store as I suspect they could sort it more simply ☹️.

If you take a photo with ‘live photo’ on, then go into the photos app and change the ‘key photo’ to a different point within the live photo, it won’t “auto-enhance” the frame that you switched over to. Thus avoiding the auto enhance feature and having the original, unedited photo. Hope this helps!

It’s an automatic filter their putting on your pictures, I have to take them off one by one so far.. Go to edit picture, click the three overlaying circles next to the crop square under the picture and you’ll see what filter they put on your picture

If you take a photo with ‘live photo’ on, then go into the photos app and change the ‘key photo’ to a different point within the live photo, it won’t “auto-enhance” the frame that you switched over to. Thus avoiding the auto enhance feature and having the original, unedited photo. Hope this helps!

I have an iPhone 13 pro max and it was doing the same thing. After messing around with the settings, I turned off the “Live” feature and it seems to have solved the issue. It’s under Preserve Settings.

I have exactly the same problem with an iPhone 13 Pro, so I assume this annoying setting is still here. I’ve tried every setting, watched every tutorial I could find, and finally discovered this discussion, but I couldn’t turn this auto-edit (which is not good at all) off. Anyway, I found a little trick, it’s not great, but it helps you keep your original photo: make sure you have LIVE mode On, take the pic, access your Photo ➡️ tap Edit ➡️ at the bottom, right next to Cancel, there is a circle (LIVE mode icon), tap there ➡️ above you’ll see a bar where you can choose another shot of your LIVE photo, choose another one and ‘Make Key Photo’. Now you have your original shot, but I must say, the quality is not the same.

Anyway, this is not a great solution, so, dear Apple, please note: we want the freedom to edit our photos as we like, this auto setting that enhance, brighten, sharpen the image, besides the fact that it’s so, so bad, it doesn’t allow us to turn it off.

Only here, there are hundreds of people who doesn’t enjoy this. Please do something!

Thank you!

I have this problem too with my 12 Pro Max, but everyone does. Apple calls it "computational photography", or deep fusion, and/or any other blitz of marketing names they've come up with in recent years. They've published white papers about it.

Gone are the days when you point an iPhone at a photo, snap, and actually get THAT photo. The same thing is happening with all smartphones. In Apple's case, what we're getting instead is a processed version of that photo through Apple's imaging pipeline that's making any number of adjustments to the photo before it appears on your screen. Some of these features can be turned off in Settings > Camera. Others cannot.

Some people love what these imaging processing features do because their photos just magically "look better". I personally hate it, because I'm a photographer who fusses over details, exposure, color tone, shadow detail, etc, and I don't want Apple's version of my photo....I want my version of the photo. In particular, skin tones and skies (under certain circumstances) look horrible on the 12 Pro Max with the latest iOS version. Simply awful. e.g., Whatever this camera is doing to skin tones indoors in lower light is dreadful. They're tone mapping the faces to the point where any skin tone nuances are obliterated and the people look uniformly pasty and fake.

The solution to this is simple: Apple should give people who want it the control to turn off most of what they're auto-doing to our photos. They do give you some control in Settings > Camera, but it's not nearly enough. There should be a setting called 'Realistic' that just gives me what the camera's image sensor is seeing, with zero processing. That's what photographers want out of iPhone cameras.

I used to buy new iPhones every two years hoping for camera upgrades that actually help me as a photographer. Typically, Apple has succeeded with that in the past. But now...with computational photography...Apple is going in the complete wrong direction for certain photo situations and I will be much more careful when buying new iPhones to evaluate the camera more carefully in all types of lighting before I just jump on board with an upgrade. Caveat emptor!

They say it’s the intended behavior.

I use Halide app and turn off fusion.