iPhone 13 ProMax HDR photos oversaturated (i.e look fake)

Maybe you'll get one someday, no one here could say and no one here can do anything about it.

As I've stated several times before, leave a comment at the link below as that's the only way anything might change; comments left there do get read by Apple execs:

Feedback - Camera - Apple

Actually, I did pay attention to the original question.

You don't like the processing, and that's personal preference.

You can use a third party app to shoot a mode with less processing or shoot in ProRAW and post-process the photos yourself.

Beyond that, you can leave a comment for Apple here:

Feedback - Camera - Apple

Brunettin wrote:

Anyway, I don’t think the issue is whether the end results are acceptable or not. The crux of the problem is that they took away our ability to choose.

I don't see that; in fact Apple provided two ways to get something more like what you want:

1) If on a device that supports it, you can use ProRAW to get photos with less (but not no) processing.

2) You can use a third party camera app like Lightroom Mobile, Halide or Snapseed to generate an actual DNG RAW file from the camera sensor which you can later process as you would a RAW file from any camera.

What the move to computational photography and the rise of Instagram with filters has shown is most people are not as interested in an accurate photographic representation as they are in a photo that captures the feeling of the moment being captured.

The Camera app seem to provide at least some of that, and Apple has provided methods of getting images without that for those who are interested.

Everything comes with some drawbacks; many cameras now have "face detection" to focus on what the camera sees as faces, which is great until your photo has something it interprets to be a face, or you're trying to take a photo of a pet in a room that happens to have a stuffed animal and the camera locks onto that.

A lot is also personal interpretation; as mentioned above, my sunset cloud photo might look very oversaturated and overdone, but it actually pales in comparison in both color and intensity to how the actual sky looked.

If you use RAW you know you will always have to post-process it, whether from a DSLR, mirrorless or phone.

You spent all this money on a product that is what it is. You had 14 days to try it, decide it wasn't for you and return it for a full refund.

You see no reason for Apple to do the things they do, but they do and their financials show they made the correct decision.

But feel free to let Apple know of your unhappiness at the link below; they do read and occasionally act on the feedback they receive.

Feedback - Camera - Apple

It's working as designed.

You can use a third party photo app such as Halide, Lightroom Mobile or Snapseed to take an unprocessed RAW mode photo and process it yourself.

As we are just other users here, you can let Apple know of your feelings here:

Feedback - Camera - Apple

Kapai21 wrote:

I 100% agree. I took my iPhone 13 back today. But I am stuck as to what phone to buy. I love to take sunrise photos and iPhone 13 did not produce photos I could use.

It's your choice, and you should certainly choose the best device for your needs, but my earlier reply (reproduced below) may be of use-

The iPhone 12 has customizable HDR settings, which you can read about here - Adjust HDR camera settings on iPhone - Apple Support

Every iPhone from the 7 to the 12 models can have HDR disabled.

Hey all I’m on an iPhone 13 which I recently got. I took some sunset photos the other day and it seems like there is some setting active which is breaking the shots. I’ve read this thread.. but can anyone help? Does the following look similar to what you’re seeing? basically I would expect the absolute top of the frame to be a near-black gray value. I’m so disappointed it doesn’t even look like a sunset, more like an ET movie poster. The bizarre glow around the subject is impossible to remove also. It seems crazy

I don’t seem to be able to “bring anything back” from these images like I used to be able to on my iPhone from 5 years ago.

Because I don’t have 13 Pro, am I basically screwed?

[Edited by Moderator]

iphone 13 pro max really screw the photos up this round.

Look at the roof top of the building...

It's supposed to be Green but ios AI change to Blue...real mess up.

For zoom shots, iphone 13 pro max will deliberately sharpen and draw over numbers...this is so fake.

[Edited by Moderator]

Has there been any fix for this yet?!! Can’t take any pictures of a person in the dark without them looking like they were photoshopped in

I’m so disappointed in the heavily saturated photos my iPhone 13 Pro takes. This is a quick photo taken from my driveway of the sunset and the colours are so saturated, definitely not what I saw in the sky. I paid so much for this phone, bitterly disappointed. I take a lot of sunrise and sunset photos so I may have to return it.

have you solved this issue?

Any update on this issues…..solved it?

i have an issue with the processing software for taking pictures which include faces. It overworks them and make the person look like it's photoshoped on the pic, i tried to turn it off but there's no option for that. They just look over processed and saturated in a unnatural way, i do have photos of me and friends that are not even usable. i really hope that they can sort this one out with an update.