This hidden setting turned my iPhone 16 Professional into an expert photograph studio

Certain, I’d’ve been emotionally hooked up to my iPhone 12 Professional (though it was hanging on by a thread), however I used to be by no means so joyful to see the digital camera go. After I first bought it again in 2020, like all new telephones, I felt like I had the most recent, baddest digital camera on the block. I do not know if it was age, being left within the solar too lengthy (a number of occasions) or the conspiracy that Apple deliberately degrades older iPhone fashions, however now in 2025, the digital camera high quality had develop into borderline embarrassing.

I am not kidding — my associates would seize my telephone to take an image and instantly ask what was fallacious with it. However then different occasions, so long as the lighting was completely excellent, it might gaslight me into considering it was the very best digital camera round once more. I used to be completed questioning whether or not or not a photograph would end up a number of weeks in the past after I lastly upgraded to an iPhone 16 Professional.

Now that I have been taking pictures my photographs with the for the final two weeks, here is what I discovered stark (and never so insane) concerning the leap up 4 generations.

Model

Apple

SoC

A18 Professional (3nm)

Show

6.3-inch 1,206 x 2,622 pixel decision 120Hz LTPO Tremendous Retina XDR OLED, 120Hz, HDR10, Dolby Imaginative and prescient, 1000 nits (typical), 2000 nits (peak)

Storage

128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB

Apple’s iPhone 16 Professional line options a number of notable upgrades over final 12 months’s iPhone 15 Professional, together with a devoted digital camera button, a brand new A18 Professional chip, a much bigger display screen, and several other AI-powered Apple Intelligence options.

Associated

5 surprising issues I want I knew earlier than upgrading to the iPhone 16 Professional

I traded in my iPhone 12 Professional and walked right into a tech id disaster.

The starkest distinction

Lighting did not need to be on its finest habits

First, let’s discuss specs. The iPhone 12 Professional has a 12-megapixel digital camera whereas the 16 Professional has a 48-megapixel digital camera — that is actually 4 occasions the megapixels 4 generations later. I’ve already seen the distinction after I’m zooming in or cropping my images from my new digital camera, and it brings me nice pleasure as a social media supervisor who’s all the time slicing, cropping, and pasting all whereas my fingers are crossed on the standard aspect of issues.

Now, let’s transfer to aperture, which is how a lot mild a lens permits right into a digital camera. The 12 Professional has ƒ/1.6 aperture on its principal digital camera whereas the 16 Professional has ƒ/1.78. On the floor, aperture going up is not all the time the very best factor — it does let in additional mild. Nonetheless, that was the primary situation I used to be operating into with my dusty 12 Professional — every little thing was simply means too darkish. Mix that barely “worse” aperture on the 16 Professional with 4 occasions the megapixels and the opposite improved processing powers it possesses? I will take the 16 Professional profitable the specs warfare each day of the week.

Pay attention, I used to be anticipating to be blown away by the iPhone 16 Professional’s digital camera high quality in comparison with the dinosaur I used to be taking photos on the 5 years prior. However after tooling round for a short time, I noticed that even after 4 generations, Apple did such a very good job with the iPhone 12 Professional’s lenses that every one the upgrades that got here after had been actually simply fine-tuning tweaks to optimize an already good digital camera. I wasn’t as overwhelmed with image high quality as I believed I might be.

Granted, my Snapchats had been noticeably increased high quality — I even had a buddy ask me what I had completed in a different way within the final week. I am not saying I regarded higher. Quite the opposite, you would really see each single pore on my face (which I did not love, clearly). However what I did discover proper off the bat was that below any lighting, excellent or pitch black, my new iPhone 16 Professional bought a very good shot in it. My iPhone 12 Professional would fully freak out in any sort of lighting — and I could not even take into consideration taking a selfie outdoors for the sake of sunshine stripes that fully dominated any facial options, not to mention posting any photos I took to my Instagram.

Associated

I’ve bought beef with Apple’s irritating {hardware} transition

Spare {hardware}, good sir?

I suppose my 12 Professional gave me somewhat photograph PTSD, as a result of I discovered myself hesitating to take photos I knew it could not take even after I already upgraded to the 16 Professional. Nonetheless, I overcame that feature-fear and was delighted to search out that I had image freedom as soon as extra with the brand new telephone. Lighting positive helps any image, but it surely did not make or break my image high quality within the slightest.

New images options

Howdy Photographic Types

Bear in mind how Portrait Mode took the world by storm again in 2016? Nicely, I used to be not impressed. I thought of myself a Lightroom Cell skilled on the ripe age of 17, and I most well-liked to edit my photos after I took them — not throughout — thanks very a lot. Over time, increasingly modes got here out, however I wasn’t one to leap on that bandwagon. It was all the time the worst after I would ask a stranger to take an image on my telephone out in public solely to undergo my digital camera later and see that they selected to make use of Portrait Mode. They nearly all the time did it to be thoughtful, so I might scream into the theoretical pillow after I bought dwelling so they would not assume I used to be ungrateful.

However a brand new function has lastly had the gall to strike my fancy this time: Photographic Types. Granted, it helps to work at a tech website — Patrick O’Rourke, Pocket-lint’s Editor-in-Chief, put me onto this specific setting. Mainly, it makes use of scene understanding to regulate specific colours in several components of your images. Individuals typically use it to personalize how they need their pores and skin tones to look right down to the pixel. I used to be intrigued by how nuanced it may get.

Associated

How I escaped the HEIC nightmare and located a JPEG dream

Get that “Excessive Effectivity” out of my face.

To begin, you must select 4 of your favourite photos — the catch is that they needed to be taken on the brand new telephone. After you select them, they will act as mediums to match totally different Types. You may choose between:

• Customary
• Amber
• Gold
• Rose Gold
• Impartial
• Cool Rose

Since I’ve hotter undertones, the latter three made me look completely insane and straight out of a 2014 Tumblr selfie captioned: Listening to Sweater Climate #theneighbourhood. So, I opted for Amber, after which bought to taking part in round with the depth of the tone and shade. Like all Apple options, it was extremely intuitive — so long as you have used any sort of fundamental photograph editor ever in your life.

You may return and edit this setting any time, however from there on out, the photographs you are taking will robotically be edited in that model. I prefer it as a result of it is extremely refined — not in your face just like the notorious Portrait Mode. Now, my photos are simply ever-so-slightly hotter in the best way I might often edit them anyway.

Digital camera Management

I actually could not care much less about it

Sure, we all know — there is a enjoyable new button on the iPhone 16 fashions that successfully flip your iPhone right into a digital camera. Nonetheless, I fairly actually have not used it since I arrange the telephone, thought, “Oh yeah, there’s this new factor,” tried it as soon as, and stated out loud, “I’m by no means going to make use of this factor.”

Nonetheless, I do need to acknowledge it, because it’s the most recent piece of {hardware} on the iPhone because the Motion Button, and I’m neck-deep into the images division right here. In looking for a very good use for the brand new button (and to throw Apple a bone right here), I tweaked a fast setting to create an precise use for Digital camera Management: clicking it as I decide up my locked iPhone to right away open the digital camera app with out having to unlock or get up the display screen within the first place.

The iPhone 16 Professional’s default is to require the display screen to be on to launch digital camera management. To vary this:

1. Open Settings.
2. Choose Digital camera Management.
3. Scroll to the underside and toggle off “Require Display On.”

And there you’ve it — now you possibly can deal with your iPhone just like the point-and-shoot Apple desires you to. Tremendous-computer capabilities tagged on, in fact.