I just got my iPhone 13 Pro Max last night and all my outdoor photos are oversaturated, look fake, and I can't find a way to edit the HDR layers or even turn HDR off. The only solution is to turn down the saturation, but they still look fake, just less saturated.
Am I missing a setting?
iPhone 13 Pro Max, iOS 15
Photo blogs and professional reviewers disagree.
Your statement that "most others" say this issue must be "sorted out" runs counter to iPhone 13 sales and reviews.
For example, photography site DXOMARK currently rates the iPhone 13 Pro/Pro Max's camera as the best available of smartphones sold in the United States.
Your preference for less processed photos is why ProRAW is available and why third-party apps can access the sensor to directly create RAW DNG files; most users do not want the less saturated photos you do.
As an aside, the colors in your sunset photo are much more subdued than the average sunset I see; the colors below are much subdued as compared to what they actually were.
(Note the photo below was downsampled from HDR, reduced in size and converted to lossier JPG by the forum software.)
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.
As a helpful heads up to potential iPhone 13 buyers out there reading this thread and considering which iPhone to buy, two of my posts were deleted in which I was agreeing with EJFlags and others who don't like the fake over processing of images that can't be reversed back to a natural look any more in the iPhone 13 camera software, and I regret not buying an earlier iPhone model. So where some commenters on this thread are stating that most people are happy with the iPhone 13 camera software because they are not complaining, it is impossible to know how many other comments are being deleted as well. My previous iPhone SE 1st gen took much more natural looking images which could be easily oversaturated in the app if that is what people prefer and the excellent sliders I used on it all the time did not remove image quality with every manipulation as they do in the iPhone 13 mini. There was also no necessity to have to manipulate the images to make them look natural (mostly! Although I was never happy with the over saturation of reds it used to do as the reds were harder to tone down without ruining the rest of the image even with the iPhone SE 1st gen). So my constructive advice is if you prefer a natural looking scenery photo or skin colouring, choose an earlier model iPhone.
No it actually does blow things up. For one, it creates really bright artificial foregrounds when in actuality they are dull. The subtleties are gone. Everything is a picture postcard. The grass here had none of the emerald quality, it was taken at dusk. Changing the exposure does not mitigate this craziness. It’s as though the foreground is constantly lit.
I seriously doubt that most people actively want fake looking scenery. I think most people put up with it because they want other features and they either do not care or they have not have seen a quality alternative and most people never post in forums about it.
Nevertheless it isn’t a reason to actively prevent people who don’t want fake looking colours from being able to turn the over-processing feature off, as per previous models.
I seriously wish I’d realised this was going to be an issue before I bought the 13 mini and I would have definitely bought the 12 mini.
What most people actually want is to not have to carry around a separate camera any more, for taking spontaneous photos. And the latest phones are marketed as having improved cameras. But it isn’t an improvement to restrict them to overprocessed images.
@Kapai21 If you’re looking for recommendations, I’d suggest Google Pixel. The phone I switched from was a Pixel 2 (made in 2017) and I when my friends and I would all take picts of sunsets (or whatever) I’d compare my old 2017 phone’s photos to my iPhone friends. It would beat them every time. I messed up and got a iPhone 13 and have regretted it everyday.
I wish I had gotten the Pixel 6.
About the over saturation, a lot of phones have that setting built-in, where it captures a picture then enhances it in some way automatically. (even my beloved Pixel does it) But the iPhone 13 goes overboard with its tweaking. I have a bunch of ruined pictures. And my guess is since ppl have been complaining about it for over a year and no update has addressed it, then Apple is either incapable of fixing it or they don’t care.
I bought the iPhone 13 Pro 3 weeks ago and the photos are horrible. The colors are off especially the natural colors like the sky, the trees, grass etc. I had the iPhone7plus before and the photos were always terrific. I am very upset and unhappy with this phone. I am a photographer and use my phone to take photos daily and an extremely unhappy with the way they look. I also have not found a fix. I brought it to the Apple store and the diagnostic came back normal and I was told it is just the way this camera is.
As mentioned before I’ve tried Halide among several other camera apps, and they are all clunky and poorly integrated with the phone itself, (although some of them do take very good photos) ie can’t be opened quickly from lock screen etc.
But that is not the point. The point is you have not given one good reason for removing the ability to turn off HDR in the apple native camera for those who wish their photos to have realistic colour and unsharpened details, especially when a natural light mode is enabled for portrait mode that should therefore be possible for photos mode.
I spoke at length to Apple support. This is a hardware issue, not a software issue. Hopefully it will be fixed in the next iPhone.
Returned.
In most cases the physical cameras are performing well.
If you are concerned, take your phone in to be examined:
That's why Apple offers ProRAW and allows third party camera apps direct access to the sensor; if you don't like what it does, there are ways to avoid it, but it will take more work.
That’s why you have 14 days after purchase to make that decision for yourself.
Personally I think that shot looks fantastic though saturation could be higher and shadows darker.
That's by design, it's how most people want their photos to look today.
iPhone 13 ProMax HDR photos oversaturated (i.e look fake)
