Steve Yedlin, the cinematographer and color-science enthusiast known for his work with director Rian Johnson, has released the Chromagraph Camera app for iPhone. The $13 app replaces Apple’s standard image processing with a RAW-based workflow inspired by film production, applying Yedlin’s distinctive, deliberately opinionated approach to color and image rendering.
A film-inspired camera app for iPhone
Yedlin immediately began discussing the “math” behind his passion for color science, but the focus of the conversation was his newly released Chromagraph Camera app. The app quickly gained attention after Johnson promoted it on social media in late October, becoming the top paid download on Apple’s iOS store.
Yedlin has collaborated with Johnson for years on films including Knives Out and Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The pair worked together again on the app. “I created all the image processing used in the film myself,” Yedlin says. Chromagraph Camera brings some of that signature image-processing approach to a smartphone camera.
Rather than relying on the iPhone’s built-in processing, the app captures RAW image data and processes it using formulas similar to those used in film production. It costs $13 as a one-time purchase and currently takes still photographs only; video is not yet supported.
Images are processed after capture
Chromagraph Camera is designed to produce highly stylized images without requiring users to manually adjust numerous settings. Apple already gives iPhone owners extensive tools for modifying image color, but the app applies its distinctive look during capture and processing.
The image shown in the viewfinder is not necessarily the final result. After a photograph is taken, the app effectively “develops” it, taking time to process specific tones, colors and grain effects. Users can then adjust the overall exposure or the image’s texture after processing.
Yedlin says he was not trying to replace Apple’s camera app or create a professional editing tool for every kind of image. Instead, the app is centered on color preferences and experimentation. “This select app is the only one that allows us to take photos the way we want them,” he says.
Yedlin and Johnson worked with programmer Eric Cameron to build the app around their preferred color treatments and refine it in the months before its launch.
An intentionally opinionated look
Despite the app’s custom processing, Yedlin still considers the iPhone a fundamentally limited device. “The idea that you can actually control it like you would with a professional camera isn’t really true anyway,” he says.
Software can change the behavior of smartphone hardware only to a certain extent. Those limits are especially apparent when developers work within Apple’s technical parameters, which restrict how far an app can extend the capabilities of the phone’s hardware.
Computational photography and generative AI have renewed debates about the nature of smartphone photography, but Chromagraph Camera is not pursuing a neutral or literal rendering of a scene. Yedlin does not view any image as a direct representation of something that exists. Whether an image is heavily stylized or appears more straightforward, he says, it is always an interpretation.
That is why the app’s appearance is deliberately “opinionated” and specific. “You can describe in words what different renderings look like, but all you need is to see it,” Yedlin says. “The color speaks for itself.”
Source: www.wired.com