Photographic Styles 3.0
Photographic Styles first launched with the iPhone 13 series as advanced filters of sorts, letting you tweak the tone and warmth of a few preset vibes. With the iPhone 16 line, Apple revamped the feature to include deeper controls, allowing users to extensively adjust the highlights, shadows, hues, and other aspects in real time. The iPhone 18 Pro upgrades the feature yet again.
The third generation of Photographic Styles, which is also coming to the iPhone Duo, maintains its predecessor’s main looks but adds texture controls to the mix. You now get to pick between soft skin, glow, and film textures, along with an optional grain effect. The neat thing about Photographic Styles 3 is that the defaults look great, letting casual users completely transform their photos without spending too much time or effort on editing.
Pros who prefer to fine-tune their shots can dig deeper by adjusting the various sliders included with each option to match the exact vision they have in mind. Like the previous version, Photographic Styles 3 can be added, changed, or removed using the Apple Photos app at any time, preserving your unaltered captures.
To use the new Photography Styles, you’ll beed to snap your photo with an iPhone 18 Pro.
Foundry
Variable aperture
Variable aperture is a standard professional camera feature that allows photographers to control how much external light reaches the sensor. The Phone 18 Pro’s main lens adopts this perk by adding six ultra-thin blades that you can adjust mechanically. A wider aperture lets more light in and helps isolate subjects by adding a bokeh effect to the background. Conversely, a narrower one maintains sharp details across the entire frame, making it ideal for landscape photography or group shots.
The iPhone 18 Pro offers four aperture options: f/1.48, f/1.8, f/2.8, and f/4.0. The first would work well for solo portrait photos or when the lighting is too dim, while the last can produce a prominent starburst effect when directing the camera towards a light source. Coupled with the film texture and grain effect in Photographic Styles 3, you can output some pretty dramatic shots. Users of third-party apps will be able to select any aperture stop within the range.
Of course, you could also opt for the two middle aperture options for something more balanced. If this all sounds too confusing, the auto mode will reliably handle the task and pick the suitable aperture based on your setup.
