Turn off Auto-Enhance / edit on iPhone

I’m so happy I finally got to fix it. I downloaded and installed the new software 15.2.1. I then went to settings then camera then to formats and then turned on the apple pro raw option. I think this works for Pros only but now the pictures are gorgeous and they no longer change to those dark and dull ones due to deep fusion.

I have the same issue. Considering returning the phone it’s so bad. None of the above fixes work for me… Apple support have said it’s a known issue and a they can’t help me adjust the settings to solve it, would require a software release. Hope apple fix this soon or I will be returning my phone as the whole reason I bought it was for the camera !

Rambler67 wrote:

Terrible absolutely brutal. You pay all this money for these phones and they have that in here that you cannot control it. Every photo is a pain in the ***. Thank you Apple. I’ll definitely not be buying a new phone at least not from you people

Apple does not read here in this user-to-user forum for feedback or suggestions. You can, however, let them know your thoughts here:

Product Feedback - Apple

But if you want an Android phone, I say go for it. More iPhones for the rest of us.

Got my first iPhone 13 after years of Android.. I had chosen 13 mainly for taking pictures . I should say Iam deeply regretting the purchase.. The pictures are horribly smoothed over sharpen and there is no way to toggle off the HDR ..The highlight's and shadows are crushed even skies are blown out at times .. Please fix the camera and give us an option to manually ride the toggles

I found the decision! I'm with iOS 17.

Go to Settings, Photos and turn off "View Full HDR" function. 

The problem doesn't appear to me anymore!

@apple

Please highly consider turning off this feature it makes pictures overexposed and sharpened . Please please please

I’m to the point of throwing my iPhone 13 against a wall due to the incredibly horrible camera on this specific model.

I have over 15,000 pics most taken from other earlier phones. They’re great. The pics from this camera are horrendous. I’ve been to Apple and the Genius Bar twice with no fix. Apparently iPhone 13 is specifically known for the HDR issues and there is NO WAY to shut it off (iPhone 13 Pro doesn’t have the issue) Why would Apple not recall this phone?! Because it’s a hardware issue, software updates do nothing.

Here is the WORST part: the phone will continue post developing ON PICS THAT WERE TAKEN MONTHS AGO and ruin those pics if I simply open the pic in the photos app. Huge, wart-like bubbles on any skin, washed colors, etc. completely ruined hundreds of photos and memories. And I cannot reverse that awful post developing. I don’t have the option of taking RAW photos on this model. I can’t turn off HDR. It’s insane.

Apple is doing nothing about this. Look at the number of people above who “Me too”’d these forums!

If you screenshot the photo immediately after taking it, you can obtain the good photo before the over-processing kicks in.

Oops! I have the Pro. Photo software is embarrassing. Changing to RAw does not solve the issue. The only fix I’ve found is to turn highlights down by a ton. Ridiculous to spend this much $ on a phone when most pll upgrade the phone purely for the camera upgrades. iPhone 13 camera is useless without a third party app. Not a workable solution for something that costs this much $.

I don’t think it’s possible to turn off but I’ve found a way of making the situation better.

If you go to Settings>Camera>Preserve Settings and turn on Exposure Adjustment

then on the camera app in the top left you can adjust a sliding scale that will apply a preserved exposure adjustment. This is means you can set it so any photo you take will have slightly less exposure automatically, and so when the phone auto enhances the photo it will increase the exposure to a normal level instead of a ridiculously high level.

I have exactly the same problem with my iPhone 13. I have to walk around with two iPhones in my pockets - I use my old iPhone XS only to take photos because they’re so much better.

I’m a photographer and it’s absolutely devastating to see your photos being destroyed infront of your eyes with the IPhone 13.

I’ve talked to so many different people from Apple, I went to different apple stores and all of them had no idea how to turn it off. I’ve tried everything!

I wanted to change it to an iPhone 14 because I thought it was only iPhone 13 that had that issue - but I’m chocked when I realised that iPhone 14 also has this auto enhancement.

I was then able to report the issue properly and make a complain where I could send screenshots of the issue and I had a call with people from apple. I told them that it’s absurd that this issue isn’t fixed when people have been complaining about this since the iPhone 13 was realised, and the dude from apple replies “I’m sorry that you think it’s an issue”… (!!!!!!!)

It’s ridiculous that a phone’s camera in 2022 has an auto adjustment that you can’t turn off. Makes ZERO sense.

I found that out if you go to settings , camera > formats turn on ProRaw and then Take a picture Go edit the picture and slightly rotate it and then turn it back and press done then it’ll be the picture you took and not the enhanced one. Hopefully this isn’t confusing it may be but hopefully this helps. I also turned off live photo

THIS WORKS!! I tried all these tricks but what actually worked was to shoot with RAW on, edit the photo, click to crop, toggle it a bit then put it back how you desire, hit done, it should go back to the original. I tried it and it worked!

actually, i think i’ll switch from 13 pro to xs because apple they don't want to fix the big problem, when battery health drop down more than 80% for avrg pp and the phone becomes unusable, bugs… than she said oh we will fix on next update

Go to settings.

Go to Camera.

Scroll down to “Photogenic Styles”

Make sure it set to “standard” and not a preset filter.

I accidentally set a filter when I was setting up this phone when I first got it. This has since fixed my auto filter problem.