Apple Photos creating random black spot in white of eye(s)

I'm discovering an irregular-shaped black "spot" in the white area(s) of an eye in some people in some of the people photos I take (often couples, small groups). See attached examples. This is happening intermittently with photos taken using both iPhone 15 Pro Max (running iOS 17.1, 24MP) and viewed on the phone (I can't seem to upload the photos into my iMac, the app keeps restarting in mid-retrieval of my phone photos) and in photos taken using my 60 MP Sony A7RV camera and imported (via USB) into my late 2015 Intel iMac running Monterey 12.7.1.

So do I conclude it's the Apple Photo software or ??? I noticed in some group photos a given person's eye just looked a little "off" and asymmetrical in appearance and when I enlarged the image, the black spot is immediately seen. This spot is often on one side of the pupil in one eye, and sometimes the black spot appears on both sides of the pupil in one eye or in both eyes. If I take two group photos of the same group a few seconds apart ("blink" insurance shots), a black spot might appear in a man's or woman's eye in the first photo but not the second photo. I've had to upload such "spot" photos to my iMac so that I can enlarge the image and use the retouching tool in Photos to remove the spot(s). Sure would like to fix this puzzling anomaly!


iMac 27″, macOS 12.7

Posted on Nov 1, 2023 8:25 AM

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1 reply

Nov 1, 2023 11:51 AM in response to dlincolnb

I'm discovering an irregular-shaped black "spot" in the white area(s) of an eye in some people in some of the people photos I take (often couples, small groups). See attached examples. This is happening intermittently with photos taken using both iPhone 15 Pro Max (running iOS 17.1, 24MP) and viewed on the phone (I can't seem to upload the photos into my iMac, the app keeps restarting in mid-retrieval of my phone photos) and in photos taken using my 60 MP Sony A7RV camera and imported (via USB) into my late 2015 Intel iMac running Monterey 12.7.1.

I MIGHT have narrowed down the source of this mystery annoyance, and it's interesting that I've seen other posts now from years back with the same inquiry, and nowhere have I found any direct Apple answer other than "restart your phone". I typically click on Auto Edit per photo and then crop and fine-tune brightness, saturation, etc after that. When I tried selecting an affected photo and then selecting "Revert to Original", the black artifacts or "spots" in the eye(s) disappear. This would all seem to suggest the Apple Photo software, specifically the Auto Edit option, is the source? IF this is an Apple Photos Auto Edit anomaly, is there a fix (other than not clicking on Auto-Enhance) coming and acknowledgement of this issue from Apple?

Apple Photos creating random black spot in white of eye(s)

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