I’ve been playing around with Adobe’s Project Indigo computational camera app recently. I’ve got an old, but completely functional iPhone 12 Pro. Tonight at a minor league baseball game, while we were waiting for the game to end and the post-game fireworks to begin, I decided to try Project Indigo out in some challenging light. First, from our seats on the first base line, I took a shot with the iPhone’s stock camera app:

The shot’s fine, but it’s clear the net was an issue. The iPhone processing made it seem far more prominent than it really was. I then tried to take the exact same composition with Project Indigo:

IDG_20250705_211832_526 Edited.

This looks a lot closer to reality. It handles the sky and the net better. You can’t really tell from this upload, but detail is much cleaner with fewer artifacts. Project Indigo is still slow to process and occasionally overheats your phone, but in the right situation, it’s a great option.

Your mileage may vary, especially if you have a newer, more capable iPhone. But if you are trying to capture an image in some challenging light, give Project Indigo a shot.

Bob Wertz is a type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.