What makes a good picture? For the average person, anything with lots of attractive colors and sharp lines that can trigger some envy-filled comments on social media is good enough. Some may argue that you need reality in the picture, whether perfect or not, not a cluttered, account-driven mess.
I recently spent $20 on the Halide app to see what a photo looks like without artificial intelligence and computation. The results of the “Zero Operation” process were a real eye-opener. But as any photographer will tell you, the quality of the camera lies in the quality of hands using it.
Unfortunately, the world of photography is highly selective and has a steep learning curve. When was the last time you turned off the professional mode in your phone’s camera app and dealt with sliders like color saturation in the editing app?
But if you’re aiming for a “good” picture, basic knowledge – and control if possible – of aspects like highlights and shadows is essential. So, isn’t there a way for the average person to capture good photos without undergoing an intensive training course to understand terms like ISO levels? There is, and it’s called Photography Styles, on the new iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro.
Photography Styles is the real deal
These phones feature a new control panel linked to Photography Styles, a next-generation filtering system from Apple. It allows you to adjust the color and tone of the image simultaneously, along with the power of the applied filter. Apple says the new styles also gain a deeper understanding of skin tones.
I brought my photojournalist friend and marked a street photographer, letting them experience Photography Styles. Their expert advice? It’s great. The downside? You may not like most of them. Personal taste is everything!
Photography Styles may seem like a fancier word for filters, but it’s more than that. The crucial difference is that these styles are not a one-size-fits-all approach, where you just add a clear color profile to the image – like you do with an Instagram filter.
Instead, it’s more like a preview of a completely different mood, but with the crucial distinction of providing basic adjustments that allow you to achieve the polished shot. Instead of acting as a colored blanket, you’re in the driver’s seat.
Unlike filters, where fine details often go unnoticed, the new Photography Styles and tone adjustments fundamentally act like a colored lens, leaving users plenty of room to play with rather than just adjusting color filter intensity.
Details matter, and this approach to capturing stylish photos is entirely original. The average size of a 24-megapixel photo captured with the main camera without any color cover is usually 2.8 megabytes, but the same frame with the applied style is about 3.2 megabytes.
These additional details are all the changes made to the color, tone, and density panel while clicking on the image. Or in short, all your original details remain artistically intact, with the added weight of the preserved “filter” data alongside the basic pixel data.
And it’s worth noting that the entire approach is reversible. This means you can play with Photography Styles, apply or remove them, adjust their intensity before and after clicking on the image.
Apple says the A18 and A18 Pro chips inside the phones allow for this new level of control. After all is said and done, Photography Styles are a smart way to reconnect with Apple’s aggressive approach to color processing and HDR pipeline.
Simple Edits, Important Results
Making edits through three different control maps may seem daunting. But believe me, the sheer joy of reducing the original color cast of an iPhone and then manually tweaking the style makes the images sing in real-time.
Using Photography Styles is also straightforward. From the camera app, just click on the square icon in the top right corner. Want to apply Photography Styles to an already captured photo? Go to the Photos app, open your photo, click on the Edit button, then select Styles. That’s all there is to it.
Even with minimal edits, every photo you take with the iPhone 16 Pro and Photography Styles looks much better than what the default mode offers.
In my opinion, this whole approach is the most beneficial way to avoid post-capture editing hassles and necessary filter work before posting on social media platforms like Instagram.
Seeing the changes applied to the frame also provides a respite from the “analysis paralysis” dilemma, where one clicks through multiple shots to apply a different set of edits to each one to find the one set that works best.
Now, I love strong shadows in my photos. I’m also guilty of using short articles to add an extra layer of interest to the central piece. Pair that with slightly lower ISO and desaturation, and you get a film camera look with plenty of grunge.
The results speak for themselves – if you like what you see, the dramatic style is your best friend. I also love myself a healthy dose of monochrome capture. To achieve this, I’ve taken hundreds of shots with the excellent Stark B&W monochrome style.
While I’ve never attempted to chase the standards set by the legend Daido Moriyama, I believe monochrome shots have a painful depth that allows for storytelling that you won’t get with a color-saturated shot. Of course, it takes some work to frame and compose the shot – and if you’re willing to put in the extra effort, adjust exposure and focus – but the results are well worth the effort.
A Powerful Tool – With Some Limitations
When I transferred a set of photos I clicked on the iPhone 16 Pro for the first time to my iPad Pro, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the iPad Pro offers the Photography Styles editing panel in the built-in editing menu within the Photos app. This way, you can capture a photo on your iPhone 16 and then use the larger-screen iPad to edit it using Photography Styles to your liking.
I’m not sure if it’s manageable on older iPads, specifically those with A-series processors and not M-Silicon series. It’s also unclear if Apple will provide editing flexibility on Mac devices, and if so, to what extent. Nevertheless, it makes the whole experience much more enjoyable.
Even if you’re editing on the iPhone 16 Pro, there’s no major reset system here. So, if you’re tweaking the presets in a photographic style, the undo button at the top just changes the density back to the original, not the color and tone.
Furthermore, if you plan on making significant edits in post-processing programs like Adobe or Darkroom, there’s some bad news for you. ProRAW capture format does not support Photography Styles.
Due to using iOS 18.1 Beta 6 on my iPhone 16 Pro, manipulating Photography Styles seems to make the phone run warmer than usual. It’s not a deal-breaker, but it’s something distinctive for me.
I’ve been running the Developer Beta version on my iPhones for the past few years and I’ve never seen a phone heat up this quickly, especially when taking photos. The computational pipeline seems to be really pushing the internal resources. Fortunately, it’s a small price to pay for this amazing feature.
A Feature Every iPhone 16 Owner Should Use
Photography Styles in the iPhone 16 series is not a magic bullet for capturing great shots. For example, you may often encounter missing surface details or poorly exposed edges when trying to get an artistic shot. You still don’t have the same level of manual control as with DSLR cameras or, worse yet, dealing with dozens of sliders and wheels in Lightroom.
Additionally, you still have to contend with challenges of low light and noise. In such scenarios, Apple’s algorithmic approach to noise reduction produces clearer, more vibrant images.
But wait, there’s no harm in trying. Luckily, understanding the controls in these Photography Styles is much easier than mastering manual controls like DSLRs or, worse, dealing with dozens of sliders and wheels in Lightroom.
For most iPhone users, Photography Styles – with its intuitive control system – is the easiest and most definitive way to click photos with a unique flavor. This ease and substantial impact are enough reasons (for me at least) to take the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro out for a spin, if not flaunt them.
