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

I am a pro photographer. I love HDR. I do it or Flambient with my DSLR a lot. But I have the choice when to use it. All people want is a toggle. And I get the merits of exposure compensations, but tangerine skin looks good on no one. It's even very evident in some mid African American skin tones.

Well this is exactly what I thought, we have to write a lot about the frustration we feel because of the over saturation when taking pictures so that Apple reads what they should already assume or know. And let us prey that Apple comes up with a solution quickly.

So waited a few days for my Apple Support Tech to call back after Engineering would look into it. She assured me an answer by Monday which surprised me.

Got an email from Apple saying they tried to call, but they didn't or had the wrong #.

Then immediately got an email saying my tech was out of the office.

Called and talked to another tech. Told me there is never an ETA fro Engineering which I'm not surprised.

Got till Jan 8th to return. Might hang on a bit, but tech told me too his 11 Pro shoots images just fine and that seems to be the consensus.

Good luck all.

I just got my iPhone 13 pro, having previously used a Pixel for 5 years.

I took a few photos this evening at sunset and am very disappointed. These photos are over saturated.

I never had this issue with the Pixel.

I think this problem is a big deal. I would very much like a solution from Apple. I do not agree with some comments in this chat series who suggest third party apps or shooting in raw and editing are the answer.

I would appreciate any feedback leading to a solution. Has anyone had helpful feedback from Apple? Thanks.

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?

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Thanks. It feels like something that will be fixed in the future. In many scenes the automatic settings are great, just some bugs in the edge cases I guess. (At least that’s how this would be interpreted in the the open source world!)

fingers crossed for a bug fix :)

Thanks for correcting. I haven’t found ProRaw to be of any help with this particular issue but have to admit I’m not one to mess with a bunch of third party apps to dig too deeply into each photo. Like to just point, shoot and use native tools to occasionally tweak. This level of process is where the suffering is occurring. I did forget in my comment that ProRaw is unique to the pro models and appreciate you clarifying.

I think you need to call Apple Care - every time I spoke to someone they were not aware of the problem or know about this forum. I was told it was a physical update not a software update. At any rate for my purposes I sold my 13 pro max and went back to the 11 pro max.

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.

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Given the photo was taken at what appears to be sunrise or sunset, colors may have been shifted slightly as the camera tried to set the proper white balance for the buildings.

For zoom shots, make sure you are using optical rather than digital zoom; the latter will always look somewhat bad due to the need to enlarge existing pixels.

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.

Thanks I’m well aware of Apples return policy. I disagree, the photo looks fake. The sunset colours were a lot softer in person and I prefer natural shots over what looks to be highly edited, over saturated shots. I agree with most others, Apple definitely need to sort this issue out with their next IPhone.

Point by point:

—I do use RAW. Exclusively.

—I didn’t spend all this money on a purportedly excellent camera to have to turn around and get (pay for?) another app to fix what I feel needs fixing.

—To reiterate, IMO the HDR processing renders certain aspects unfixable, e.g. the flattened highlights/goosed shadows. Any attempts to deepen the shadows to recreate the look (most often the human face) originally observed creates unacceptable color saturation in that shadow and deepens other shadows to an undesirable level.

—I’m sure you’re right about the Insta effect. But this “forced populism” is what I find unacceptable. I see no reason for Apple to summarily deprive those who want it the ability to turn off the HDR processing. The technology already existed so it’s not like they had to reinvent the wheel here.

—Face detection is not comparable. It can be enabled and disabled at will.

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

I'm in a lot of trouble with the 13 Pro Max's camera. When I take a selfie or a normal picture, the extra color adjusts and makes my face silver. When i make a video, everyone's face becomes ugly by adjusting the color. I can't get rid of this problem at all. I'm very disappointed. 😭😭😭