iPhone 15 Pro Photos are Dark

I also upgraded from iPhone 12 Pro to the 15 pro. I wish I never upgraded. They say the camera is going to be much better, well it’s not. Everything is dark, I look 20 years older than I do. Apple you should be ashamed for tricking us all into getting this phone when it’s just a downgrade instead of an upgrade. We deserve for this issue to be solved. What is going on once that click happens? And in between the transfer of the picture being taken to into our photo albums. The color is disaster

Just spoke to Apple... They told me that images taken in HDR can only be viewed on a device that also has the same HDR settings. Those setting are embedded in the image file apparently. When I try to export an image, it's adjusts it to a JPG and I lose all the HDR enhancements. There is no way too "turn off" HDR on the 15 Pro. I feel stuck with this now. I can see beautiful images on my phone, but can't send them anywhere. UGH

I've been following this thread and wish to add that the video is fine. It is bright and high resolution. As soon as I switch to setting to photo, the screen darkens and resulting photos are also dark. This tells me it's not the camera or the lenses, but the software. Please address and fix.

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.

How do you turn HDR off? I heard it isn’t possible on the 15

Having the exact same issue. Video looks great. Still photos look either dark or washed out (lots more grey tones) or both.

iPhone 15 Pro Max. In high light situations everything is fine, but where there is a grey day or low light situation... ugh.

unfortunately I'm in Singapore right now heading over to Australia, and decided to depend on my iPhone and my Insta360 on this trip instead of my Canon G7X. Guess that was a mistake.

The weather has been grey and cloudy here in Singapore so the photo issue a quite obvious here.

I encountered a similar issue as well. After adjusting the settings, specifically disabling the "Prioritize Faster Shooting" and enabling "RAW," I noticed some improvement in reducing graininess. However, adjustments could not avoid to washed-out colours in common scenes and an eerie transformation of human faces. The front camera's performance is also disappointing in all conditions, resulting in subpar image quality, dark and washed-out colours. I had high expectations for the iPhone 15 Pro, but it appears to perform worse than older iPhones and Android devices. I hope that this discussion gains visibility, and I look forward to Apple addressing these concerns and problems for its customers.

Same issue. I have also spoken to senior advisor and did some troubleshooting. She escalated the case to engineer department instead. Still waiting for an update. Hope they will find a way to resolve it

I am having the same issue. I am an aesthetic nurse injector so up close photos are a huge part of my business and my before photos on my iPhone 13 Pro Max look Better than my iPhone 15 pro max.

the photos look great until you click capture and it comes out dark, grainey or on the flip side over saturated and over exposed when I try to use my ring light like I normally have. It’s driving me crazy and I’ve adjusted so many setting I dont Know what else to do.

I have recently purchased iPhone 15 pro max and I was really excited about this phone, the camera quality. But guess what, i am experiencing the same problem with my phone too. Pictures become so much darker and grainy after it has been taken, it looks horrible. I couldn’t believe my eyes. My iPhone 11 Pro Max takes much better pictures then this new one. I have also spoken to a member of the Apple team, they said they are aware of this issue and they are trying to solve this problem, but they don’t know when it will be fixed and how long it will take? I am just gonna downgrade with iPhone 14 pro max. I am really really disappointed ☹️. I have been waiting to upgrade for a better phone but who knew this would happen.

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.

Hi Cail, There’s no way to fix the issue from a user standpoint. It’s not a setting we can control. This bug needs to be fixed by Apple. You can submit a bug report or request for a fix here: Feedback - iPhone - Apple

Hopefully they’ll end up addressing it if enough people provide feedback.

I’m finding when taking a selfie, the viewfinder image is brighter and more flattering than the photo taken. Previous iPhone 13 Pro Max took better selfies.