Weird artefacts destroying my pictures! Is this normal?

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Level 1

8 points

Weird artefacts destroying my pictures! Is this normal?

I love taking pictures with my phone and was super happy to upgrade my XR to a 13 Pro, but the quality is WORSE!

99% of all close-focus shots with high contrast backgrounds have these artefacts (a smudgy line going along the edge of what ever there is)

No filter applied!

I tried turning off “View Full-HDR” but that didn’t do anything.

neither does this go away taking pictures in RAW:

also the contrast is WAY OFF sometimes…

all in all I’m pretty frustrated by the results and can’t understand how this could make it through QC.

Does anyone know how to correct these issues?

to me it seems like internal filters are applied (HDR or I don’t know…) creating this mess.

Pls help…

iPhone 13 Pro

Posted on Apr 19, 2023 12:30 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

197,071 points

Apr 19, 2023 1:26 PM in response to noob85

It definitely looks like HDR artefacts. The iPhone is using HDR automatically, if if the conditions are perfect for it.

Then the iPhone will take several shots at different exposures in a quick succession and fuse them to one image with more detail and more saturated colors. This will fail, if the Camera cannot compensate the motion. Then we will see ghostly contours

On earlier iPhones we could disable the smart HDR as described here or even keep the normal image: Adjust HDR camera settings on iPhone – Apple Support (UK)

On your new iPhone model it is no longer possible to disable Smart HDR. This is the main reason why I did not yet upgrade from my iPhone 11 Pro Max to a newer iPhone model. I want to have the normal photos as well, so I do not miss a good shot, because of HDR artifacts.

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Answer 2

noob85 Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 19, 2023 2:32 PM in response to léonie

Wow… that’s pretty awkward!

You just made my worst thoughts come true.

How on earth does no one from apple address this problem or let us deactivate HDR like in previous models.

I already had to return my Apple Watch due to their restrictions and therefore lacking usability but I did not expect this to be the case on their phones as well.

This makes me sad and angry at once. Apple is slowly but inevitably going down the drain.. at least IMO.

Seems like I’m going to have to sell my brand new phone… which I especially bought because of its camera.

It seems like Apple is more focused on rushing a new phone every year (even though it does not provide a real benefit) than taking their time to release a fully functional and thought-out product.

…what a disappointment!

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Weird artefacts destroying my pictures! Is this normal?

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