How do I change a photo to portrait mode using the abacus icon in iOS 18 on iPhone 15 Pro Max?

It only works if you take a photo of something in focus, such as a person, pet, object, or plant.

In the top left of a photo, tap that and it should bring up the option to turn on Portrait.

Then if you want to adjust the depth level, you can tap the abacus icon and go into editing and do so.

JennL19 wrote:

This is the photo I took and there is no button on the top left to tap on...

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/8fda446c-17d9-49d7-93ff-f10bccc25c3f

Can you try turning on Live Photos and do it again?

JennL19 wrote:

I did and there is still no button to turn it to portrait mode for further edit....

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/0f40b303-f4ab-4046-afc9-e9a1209f6b84

Have you tried other photos? Changing a photo to portrait only works on certain photos.

JennL19 wrote:

Thanks. Yes, it only works on some photos... but it's so random and unreliable.

Anyway, thank you for your help!

You're welcome. The photos need a certain amount of depth to be able to become a portrait, which are best achieved in photos with a subject.

Off the subject-- but I had to think about the "abacus" icon. I figured out you meant this:

That's the Edit icon, which is intended to look like the Editing sliders for Photos on a Mac

The sliders on a phone are often vertical

so I'm afraid it's easy to not recognize the icon's meaning.

I kind of like "abacus," though…