iPhone 15 Pro Photos are Dark

The only way I can get my image to look the same in the photos app and elsewhere is to Go to Settings -> Photos-> and toggle OFF View Full HDR. This shows the image as you can expect it to look outside of the photo app when exporting. You just lose all the lovely HDR brightness and contrast. Still very disappointing.

It’s not “fixable” unless Apple releases a software update. The problem occurs with 14 Pro and 15 Pro and it’s how they have the camera structured at the moment. You can provide feedback here: Feedback - iPhone - Apple

Hopefully if enough people complain they will change it as they’ve changed other things that masses have complained about.

I just got my iPhone 15 pro max and I still have my iPhone 11 and I was having the same issue and I finally figured it out. It’s not the camera it’s the photo app doing a correction to the post image because snap chat and instagram keep the same image in the viewfinder and the post image. So go to Settings, Photos, and toggle OFF View Full HDR. It’s completely fixed it for me. When HDR is on it’s essentially combining 3 images into one finalized image. Which is probably what apple associates where trying to explain but I have to idea why they wouldn’t suggest turning HDR off. Hope this fixes everyone’s issue with the camera. It did for me.

I found the solution!!

if you go into your settings>camera>photographic style change it to “standard” because my preset for it was “rich contrast” it’s a auto filter for your camera and changing it will prob fix the problem you’re having because I was having the same one until I changed that 👍 I hope this helps!

So we opened a ticket and time ran out. I agreed to take a series of photos side by side comparing results from the 12 Pro Max with the new 15 Pro Max.

To be fair the comparison of several photos in different light conditions did not stand up to the complaint my wife had made about photos being too dark. What was noticeable was the image quality (I mean resolution) was better on the new phone. The colour balance was slightly warmer on the 15; my skin tone was slightly more red in the 15 photos than from the 12. I feel the accuracy of the colour tone was probably better on the 12 but the overall quality of image was better on the 15.

Later it became more clear where her complain had come from. My wife is a fan of a third party app called Camera 360. This offers a wide range of image enhancement options, perfect for people who share selfies every 30 minutes or so. There were very different results comparing Camera 360 photos between phones even after turning all the filter features off.

So I feel the open case with Apple can be closed - though we will keep a keen eye on results for the next week or so. For now my wife is satisfied the phone is fine. The selfie app is where her problem lies.

I have the same issue. I used iPhone 12 & 13 both pro max version and my experience with 15 pro max camera was unimpressive the moment I tested the camera. The photo turn dark, over sharped after taking the photo. Went to apple and meet with engineer and run some hardware test. Everything was fine with the hardware (camera). So i have done some experiment. I suspect the iPhone camera app was the culprit (Apple need software improvements on camera app in the next update). So what i did, i increased the camera exposure to +0.7 or +1.0 and somehow it improved. I hope apple will do something on camera app for 15 pro series, at least recalibrate the exposure next iOS update.

I found the solution!!

if you go into your settings>camera>photographic style change it to “standard” because my preset for it was “rich contrast” it’s a auto filter for your camera and changing it will prob fix the problem you’re having because I was having the same one until I changed that 👍 I hope this helps!

FIX!!!! I just found this in my camera settings for the iPhone 15 Pro after with my photos coming out dark automatically.

Go to Settings then Camera then Photographic Styles. From here you can swipe left or right to change the automatic styling of your photos. The one that was selected for me by default was rich contrast style. After doing tests with multiple styles, I selected the vibrant style, but the standard style will make your photos look the same as you see it through the viewfinder.

Guys it was happening the same to me. I got the i phone 15. I just discovered it’s the camera shutter. If you try to take a photo with timer it’s gonna look just like you expected, it seems it looks dark when you take the photo in the same exact moment. Also I tried instagram and snapchat cameras and it doesn’t look dark there.

Was so disappointed in the dark and grundgy photos with my iPhone 15 Pro Max! I was like everyone else …. frustrated!!

But I went to the Apple store today and used one of their 𝙂𝙚𝙣𝙞𝙪𝙨 techs. After looking over my phone settings, the tech asked me if she could do a “reset” of the settings. Obviously, that means settings get lost and have to be redone. But I was so needing to get this fixed I allowed her to do that. And guess what folks, it 𝙁𝙄𝙓𝙀𝘿 the problem.

I have been resetting things that were lost… but very happy that I did the reset. A little bit of an inconvenience, but once you get everything reset, which I’ve already done tonight, I am very happy that the camera is now functioning with lighter, good quality photos!

Same here. I'm from Switzerland. Just received the Iphone 15pro 2 weeks ago. I have also an Iphone 6SE 1. gen from 2016. To compare the photo quality I took with both phones photos. The photos of the SE were not very sharp but bright and still very pleasing like always. With the camera of the SE you can't change the light etc. You just shoot and that's it. What shocked me was that the photos with the Iphone 15pro were so dark and totally pixelated.

The photos of the 6SE from 2016 were better. I thought that's not possible and so I called the support and she said it sounds like a HDR problem but she has to check with other team members to confirm and will call me back tomorrow.

On the Iphone you can find it under:

Settings

Photos

Show Full-HDR (=> Deactivate this)

Now the photos look better. But still not exactly what I was hoping for. I'll wait 'till tomorrow what she will tell me and then decide if I will return it or not.

I found a work around. I noticed the the camera would take a photo in a lighter setting and then instantly darken as it “processed”. If shot on “live” setting you can edit and go to live and then move it back in time so to speak to the lighter version. They should fix this though. Super annoying. I can edit it to be higher contrast/lower lighting on my own.

Hi,

My 15promax does the same. Turns out because i had “live” turned off and shooting in RAW. So the darker image was because it was a single shot whereas the “live” photos are stacked and the software combines to make a shot.

jason

Unfortunately there’s no fix, and it’s likely a software issue. Apple could release an update/fix for this but sadly, they haven’t yet. Have you tried submitting a ticket to them? Hopefully if they receive enough customer feedback about this issue, they will address it. You can submit a ticket here:

Feedback - iPhone - Apple

I have tried many problem-solving methods from the internet and TikTok. The only one that really works on my 15 pro is to take selfies with the Burst mode. To activate Burst mode, tap the "take a photo" button and drag it left (or quickly swipe left the button).

Burst mode shots are not automatically edited by the iPhone, so the colors stay the same as they were seen before capturing the shot (no darker colors, less grey shades, no HDR effect).

Hope that helps, folks!