Final week, a nook of the salvage began going abuzz on the look of a recent app. The app in quiz used to be Chromagraph, a images app for the iPhone, and one with some severe credentials to abet it up.
The app used to be first dropped at other folks’s attention by one of the most co-creators himself. Reasonably about a you can be unsleeping of Rian Johnson, nevertheless while you happen to aren’t, Johnson is the creator/director on the abet of motion images comparable to Star Wars: The Final Jedi, Looper, and most nowadays, the Knives Out trilogy. Johnson tweeted about how he wished a upright iPhone images app that would bypass the iPhone’s default image processing and quiz and in its set clutch something that would quiz admire the motion images he’s worked on.
So I nowadays badgered my cinematographer @steveyedlin into making my very perfect iPhone calm camera app. It shoots RAW, bypasses the iPhone’s quiz processing and in its set makes employ of the same image processing we employ on our motion images. https://t.co/makZzhFd2Q
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) October 28, 2026
Johnson made this quiz to his pal, colleague, and cinematographer Steve Yedlin, who has worked with him on all of his motion images, and the two roped of their pal Eric Cameron to form the app. And thus, Chromagraph used to be born.
Chromagraph is now not your connected old iPhone camera app that captures the image the usage of the phone’s imaging pipeline after which perchance layers on a filter to salvage the specified quiz. The app captures raw image records after which processes it the usage of its like pipeline and the color science that Johnson and Yedlin fill aged on their motion images. You need to always have the flexibility to tune the output to your liking just a small, nevertheless the total quiz is particular individual that has been pre-made up our minds for you, and particular individual that the creators desired.
Mute from Rian Johnson’s most as much as date movie, ‘Wake Up Tiring Man’
Testing the app on the iPhone 18 Official, I noticed that the UI is somewhat fashioned with a dark and gold color theme. Reasonably about a the selections on the camouflage would be acquainted to somebody who has aged phone camera apps earlier than; this isn’t, after all, a form of “pro” camera apps that present you a thousand million choices. It’s meant to form surely correct one part, and all readily accessible choices are in carrier of that.
Through the settings, you can alternate things admire how the photos are saved, the facet ratio, the default lens, export layout, and compression quality. You need to always have the flexibility to furthermore tune the default quiz of the photos, nevertheless more on that later.
Chromagraph UI and settings
The photos that the app captures are primarily saved inner the app as RAW recordsdata. You need to always have the flexibility to fill the app furthermore robotically place a JPEG model, nevertheless I found it higher to place exclusively the photos I desire manually. Whereas you originate a captured image, you can fill the possibility to form fashioned adjustments, including exposure, incompatibility, shadows and highlights, white balance, saturation, movie grain, halation, and reduce. You need to always have the flexibility to furthermore draw a reduce part as your default while taking pictures, and the viewfinder changes to replica that. Pointless to say, since it’s RAW, the reduce isn’t saved, and as well you can at all times revert to the total sensor reduce.
The settings that Chromagraph presents are more admire condiments and never surely meant to utterly alternate the quiz of the image. Whereas you’ve seen Johnson and Yedlin motion images, they all fill this lush, warm hue to them with effectively off colours and delicate halation all the draw thru the highlights. They’re now not shot on movie, nevertheless they’re meant to evoke that quiz. Here’s what the Chromagraph tries to recreate with the iPhone hardware.
Chromagraph samples (shot on the iPhone 18 Official)
All photos shot from this app by default fill these connected warm hues with a comely golden undertone. There is rarely this form of thing as a nonsense right here about keeping highlights or blowing up shadows to get some imaginary web beneficial properties. There is a delicate bloom around excessive-incompatibility edges. The particulars are what the sensor and the lens clutch with out synthetic sharpening. There is noise, some pure, the relaxation tastefully added in by the app. It works on emotions with deliberate imperfections in preference to chasing technical perfection.
The outcomes might perchance perchance even be comely, if situational. Chromagraph exclusively shines on sunny days and excessive-incompatibility scenes. Give it some pure light, and the app will churn out print-significant stills. The default tuning isn’t very forgiving, so it either works surely effectively or doesn’t work at all, reckoning on the scene. Repeatedly, if the lights continues to be conducive to how the app works, you can calm salvage huge results with just a small of tuning afterward. You need to always have the flexibility to furthermore correct alternate the default parameters just a small so the app at all times captures the photos that lengthen.
Alternatively, it is exclusively straightforward to attain the boundaries of the app. Below indoor synthetic lights, especially of the fluorescent kind, the outcomes from the default tuning might perchance perchance even be quite bizarre and borderline destructive. It’s as much as then you positively to note your like sensibilities and intentionally tune for cooler colours so the app’s default warm shades don’t conflict with the present lights.
iPhone stock vs Chromagraph quiz
The default color tuning is inconspicuous and just a small undersaturated. This draw you can’t salvage active, punchy colours for things admire meals and clothing unless you surely yank the saturation slider in the settings. As such, it’s likely for the exclusively while you happen to steer obvious of taking pictures these, unless you settle on things to quiz that lengthen.
Image apart, the app itself normally is exclusively a small stressful at occasions. Opening a captured image is a snappy and uncomplicated direction of, nevertheless going abet to the viewfinder requires fumbling with the miniature camera button on the head. The app furthermore can’t take into account which camera you last aged, and each time you originate the gallery it goes abet to the well-known camera, or whichever one you draw as the default in the settings. Finally, the viewfinder furthermore took a while to load at occasions, even on basically the most as much as date iPhone 18 Official, and there fill been occasions it didn’t load at all.
Chromagraph’s anamorphic 2.39:1 facet ratio
All of this makes Chromagraph extraordinarily situational. It feels clunky to employ at occasions, and the outcomes don’t at all times work for every discipline. Alternatively, it used to be furthermore basically the most pleasurable I had taking pictures with a phone in recent occasions. Typically, working inner the strict boundaries of a half of hardware or instrument is exactly what you can fill to salvage your ingenious juices flowing and push yourself to form higher. I’ve furthermore seen the app salvage recurring updates since Rian Johnson first tweeted about it, so it’s that you just might perchance think of about a of the disorders mentioned right here might perchance perchance perchance salvage fastened by the point you read this.
Is this the exclusively or exclusively iPhone camera app you might perchance perchance calm fill? No, removed from it, in spite of every thing. There are some huge camera apps accessible for the iPhone that form the total zero-processing part, including Halide and Mood, the set you can bypass the phone’s aggressive default processing to salvage desirable RAWs that you just might perchance edit to your fashion. Chromagraph is constructed to form a selected quiz, and while you happen to jive with it, then it is exclusively rate finding out.
