The Pixel Camera app, formerly known as Google Camera, has long been hailed as a revolutionary force in smartphone photography, largely thanks to its groundbreaking HDR+ processing and Super Res Zoom. Now, two of the brilliant minds behind that influential software, Marc Levoy and Florian Kainz, have unveiled their latest creation: Adobe Indigo. Launched exclusively on the iPhone App Store, Indigo appears to be a spiritual successor, building on the computational photography foundations they helped establish at Google. Levoy and Kainz, in a recent blog post, describe Indigo as a computational photography camera app designed to deliver exceptional image quality with a more natural aesthetic, all while offering comprehensive manual controls. Indigo takes a page from Google’s original HDR+ playbook by merging a series of deliberately under-exposed images for each shot. However, Adobe’s approach pushes the boundaries further, combining up to 32 images at once, a significant jump from Google’s 15. The development team also notes that Indigo under-exposes these images “more strongly” than most other solutions available. “This means that our photos have fewer blown-out highlights and less noise in the shadows,” Levoy and Kainz explained. They acknowledge that snapping a photo with Indigo might require “slightly more patience” after pressing the shutter button, but promise the reward of a superior picture after a few seconds of processing. Initial comparisons of images captured by a standard iPhone and Indigo’s multi-frame approach reveal a stark difference, with Indigo’s output showcasing significantly reduced noise. Adobe emphasizes that this method also necessitates less denoising (smoothing), allowing the app to preserve natural textures and even tolerate some noise to maintain image authenticity. This multi-frame, low-denoising philosophy extends to RAW images as well. Another hallmark Pixel Camera feature making its way to Indigo is Super Res Zoom. This technology, first introduced with the Pixel 3 series, intelligently combines multiple frames, leverages natural hand movement, and employs super-resolution techniques to dramatically improve hybrid zoom capabilities. Just as Google did by combining crops from 1x and 5x cameras for higher-quality 2x and 10x shots, Indigo offers a similar strategy on iPhone Pro Max models, enabling enhanced 2x and 10x images. Notably, the 2x and 10x zoom buttons even feature subtle “SR” icons, denoting the use of super-resolution zoom. Adobe asserts that Indigo achieves a more natural look by consciously avoiding aggressive tone mapping, excessive smoothing, and over-sharpening – common pitfalls in many modern smartphone cameras. While other brands often rely on semantic segmentation (object/subject detection) for extensive adjustments, Adobe claims Indigo makes only subtle, refined tweaks. The Indigo camera app also includes a night mode that can combine up to 32 one-second-long images when a tripod is detected, though it still supports handheld photography. This intelligent tripod detection for longer exposures is a feature seen in several other OEM camera apps. Beyond these core advancements, Indigo offers a suite of other notable features, including zero shutter lag, comprehensive pro controls (ISO, shutter speed, exposure, white balance), and a long exposure mode that supports RAW output. Users can even manually set the number of frames to be combined, a useful option for capturing fast-moving subjects. Currently, Adobe Indigo is available on the App Store and requires an iPhone with at least 6GB of RAM. While an Android version is confirmed to be in the pipeline, specific details regarding its release are still under wraps. Looking ahead, Adobe plans to introduce several exciting features, including alternative “looks,” a high-quality portrait mode, a video mode with “cool computational video” capabilities, and a panorama option. The company is also exploring various bracketing options (exposure, focus, etc.), where the app would combine these bracketed shots – a feature that could prove invaluable for specialized photography like astrophotography or achieving fully in-focus images. As a journalist, it’s exciting to witness two of the brilliant minds behind the modern Pixel Camera experience continuing to innovate in such a robust camera app. We’re certainly keeping our fingers crossed for a swift arrival of Indigo on Android. App Store link