Turn off Auto-Enhance / edit on iPhone

I have the same issue on my iPhone 13 Pro. When taking a photo, few seconds after I take the photo it automatically enhances the photo making it look over exposed, over saturation, washed out and peoples faces become less

sharp. It seems to be worse in bright back light outdoor photos with people in the photo.  Every time I speak to someone

at Apple, they state they are not aware of the problem and that I need to make my complaint on the apple feedback forum. But you also get a different answer from every customer care person. I told them all they have to do is open up google, there are so many complaints about this issue its crazy how they have not come up with a fix! They noted, making the complaint to customer care begins and ends with that call. Customer care does not escalate the concerns.  I just recently switched from being an android user for many years and am super disappointed in Apples response and lack of concerns for the mess of photos I am now getting.  As of today, customer care has no idea if a fix is even in the works and their simple answer is “I am sorry.”  Such a disappointment all the way around!

When I first got my my 13 , I deeply regretted having divorced my X so quickly. I went back to Genius Bar for help but some IQ points were missing in the response I got. So, I’ve read about some of the new photo features for 14 but no mention of better editing choices. Hopefully I accidentally only missed that part. Otherwise, Apple’s mystery strategy remains hidden as to what would inspire us to ditch the 13 for the 14?

Apple =deep fusion frustration

Taking away our freedoms frame by frame.

The only solution i found is third party apps. But that workflow is more tedious, takes up more space etc, which Apple probably made intentionally.

I just spoke to an apple employee who told me he was unaware of this issue, and I linked him 3 threads on the subject, and he told me he would read it in his spare time. I bet.

I also submitted feedback to apple that they need to fix a software update for this, or at least give us the option to turn the messy auto enhance off. I suggest more people to do this, that way we'll maybe see an update in the near future. I'm crossing my fingers but i doubt apple gives a sh1t about us photographers. The biggest group of users seems to be facebook moms who've never touched an exposure slider, i guess.

Once again, Apple employees, if you are reading this. Fix this sh1t. My phone is twice as expensive as my mirrorless aspc camera, and I should therefore be able have some degree of creative control, or at least be able to post process my images instead of a lousy AI.

Still no solution for this? I hate this auto enhancement, it over-sharpens & edits photos & turns them into a crap, I thought editing is our choice?! I have to take photos with pro-raw so it lessens the sharpness, Apple needs to solve this in a new update

This really sucks! I spent so much money on this phone changing from my iphone 10 to this feels the opposite of an upgrade, y estos telefonos estan mas caros en mexico donde vivo, porfavor!!! Fix this on an upgrade, ive tried everything and it still looks bas, its so sad to see beautiful pictures turn ugly, porfavorrrr please!

There was a fix awhile back that seemed to help with this problem. The 2004 / 7th grade photo class HDR effect was diminished and I didn’t have to spend ten minutes or fool w third party app to take a decent photo. After some recent update, not sure which I stupidly upgrade every time I’m asked to, it’s back with a vengeance and I cannot take a pic that isn’t blown out and ruined.

I have submitted complaints to apple but what exactly is the logic in ruining phone photography? No one buys new phones for anything but better cameras. Why do I want my pics to look like Flickr when everyone discovered $40 hdr apps??!?!

This needs to be fixed. Whomever is running this camera software needs to get at least a 16 year old with some decent aesthetic sense to give advice over __ I can’t even guess who thinks pictures need to look like this. It hurts my brain.

It’s abominable. It is so bad. I can’t even wrap my head around it. Mine was ok after one update and recently went back to being unusable in most light conditions. Still no turn off HDR. The pics look amazing until the software ruins them.

Everyone should bomb all reviews of this phone and the next until we get a simple turn off HDR button in settings. As I wrote pll buy phones for cameras. If the camera is unusable who will buy new phones? I don’t want to spend $1300 to use a clunky third party app or dear god use burst mode and go thru the pics. Why is that necessary? The phone is a year old. Fix this!!

I know many people changing their minds after learning this and getting another phone with a proper camera instead. And it’s been more than a year and Apple doesn’t even consider this as a problem. But if you don’t fix it no one will pay this much for a phone with a camera like this. It’s horrendous! It’s not just this auto enhance, also focus is so slow, my 6 year old Samsung note 8 does a better job in daylights and focusing. But for brand new iPhone 13 it takes 3 seconds to focuse with jittering, cannot zoom and over sharpens photos and turn people into cardboards.

I have spent hours trying to figure out what the **** is wrong with my phone and now I found this and can not believe after turning in my perfectly wonderful 11 promax I’m dealing with this! I never would have switched had I known 😞. I use my camera for a living and these auto enhanced pictures are AWFUL!!! If they don’t fix this I just might end up moving to android. So upset!

I just got the iPhone 14, and I find it incredibly frustrating that the photos are ruined by the auto enhancement. The camera is capable of taking a great photos, idk who in their right mind thought this would be a good feature. If we want to edit our photos we can do that on our own I feel. All my photos are grainy and the sharpness is too much. Seriously making every photo atrocious. I’m considering keeping my old iPhone and bringing this back that’s how much I hate this deep fusion thing whatever it’s called. Seriously. It’s not a subtle change at, just completely trashed the photo all together.

sadly i tried everything to turn off auto enhancing but apparently you can’t.

the thing i do now is taking the pictures, select my favorite ignoring it looks awful, and then in the app lightroom i turn reduce clarity.

hope this helps :)

LOL I actually had to return iPhone 12 to get back to using my old iPhone 8 ( which is a true blessing) compared to these latest iPhones!!!

And all because of this stupid photo enhancement effect!!! What a waste and what a shame that even spending a good amount of money cannot get you a proper camera!!!!

The latest software does not solve this problem either... this is just incredible!!!

i just "upgraded" from the iphone xr and wow the phone 13 camera is SEVERELY DISAPPOINTING. just awful post-processing. i'm also surprised by how bad the wide angle lens is even in a bright indoor room. absolute garbage.

I took three photos for 3 cats together from their side on Iphone 13 Pro this morning and the Photo Auto Enhance function has consistently changed one of the cats' faces partially to look like a monkey face! Seriously Apple!!!

So disappointed and frustrated that Apple still has no solution to this problem after endless complaints. They clearly don’t care about the customer as long as they keep getting our money. Asking myself why I am still using an iPhone… at this point iMessage and being connected to my other apply products are the only reasons I’m still here. But as the quality continues to go downhill, these reasons aren’t enough to stick it out any longer. The main feature of a phone I care about is the camera, iMessage and the apple ecosystem are less important to me. Somehow they’ve taken an amazing camera and rendered it entirely useless.