Removing the background image in album view Photos App iPadOS 18.4

Oops-- I was showing an iPhone rather than iPad. But on my iPad, I really looks the same, as long as I have Movie Preview turned off.

With Movie Preview turned on, I get half the screen with the preview image, but it shrinks to that title bar as soon as I de-select Movie Preview.

I tried the iPad in Landscape (my usual locked mode) and in Portrait, and it worked both ways.

I’m having a similar issue. For most of the albums in the left pane whether it’s default or custom, I initially see the key photo as the album background. If I scroll to the top, the background changes to the next photo in the album. It just keeps doing the same thing. I don’t see a different between light or dark modes. Movie preview is off. It’s definitely a distracting experience.

Since many of us don't see this effect, it seems unlikely that a version change in the OS will affect it. I wonder if there is a 3rd Part app that's interfering. Certainly, try a forced restart: 

Force restart iPhone - Apple Support

This is different from a simple Power Off. I had to continue holding the button down past the "slide to power off" message, and then I released the button only after  the Apple Logo appeared indicating a re-start. 

tony.d. wrote: …the background of my album of photos to be very distracting.

I'm not sure what you are meaning about the background. Do you mean the sometimes obnoxious slideshow at the top of the Album? In that, you're not alone, and you have some options. In albums and some collections you can turn off the preview movie by going to the sort menu at the bottom, and choosing View Options,

and then unchecking "Movie Preview."

This is what my Album view looks like:

With the movie preview turned off.

By using "Dark Mode" in Settings or Control Panel

you can have a black background.

Does this work for you?

I'm not sure why we're seeing different things. I'm using iPadOS 18.3.2 How about you?

I do not like light mode for Photos at all. The white background is hard on the eyes and makes it hard to view the colors properly, so switching to light mode would not help for me. While this problem persists, I am picking key photos for the albums, that are showing a dark background in the upper part, but still allow me to recognize the album in the sidebar by the key photo.

Seems there is a hidden setting that is only loosely tethered to any of the settings we have been discussing. My M4 iPad Pro running iPadOS 18.5 (and 18.4 before that) uses a plain background (white or black depending on light or dark mode) below the movie or header stripe (depending on that setting). I'm not a constant user of Albums, but I don't recall seeing the background image that tony.d. shows in any previous 18.x release or recently at all. It does seem familiar from some time ago. Perhaps I turned it off when there was such a setting and that setting "stuck" for me.

markwmsn wrote: … Seems there is a hidden setting

As I've said, I also do not see this effect, as my previous screenshot shows. But I don't know why you and I are different from léonie, tony.d, and others who are seeing this. It's hard to believe it's a setting that none of us can find, but it could be collateral damage from some other seemingly benign setting.

Anyone tried turning Face ID on and off?

OK, I just did--also Loop and Auto-play. I can't make the background image appear. Phase of moon?

Yes they really screwed the photo app. You can’t search for dates, the video preview and loop never turns off no matter what . I’m not sure why they did this , maybe to make us buy more storage and use that . Are there any third party photo apps I can use instead of the apple photo app.

I finally found a solution on a macrumors thread and thought I would share here (first time posting so hopefully I'm within the guidelines of linking to an outside webpage - I wanted to credit the poster for the solution)..

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/photo-albums-background-another-ios18-blunder-solution.2456456/

Seems it happens when Reduce Transparency is turned on while using Dark Mode, but there is a way to turn it off for just the Photos App.

Basically.. go to Settings > Accessibility,

scroll down and select > Per-App Settings,

select > Add App, then scroll down and select the Photos App,

then Select Photos (on the Per-App-Settings page) and turn OFF Reduce Transparency

It worked for me. I had been taking screenshots of a black screen to put in albums, but I had to repeat that often for the screenshots album to keep it at the top. It was worth it, though kind of a pain.. so really glad to have a better solution!

j

i'm 100% sure its a bug. when i turn dark mode off it goes back to normal but as soon as its on theres an image in the background that cannot be moved... it has to be an error if it isn't consistent between modes as i can't see a single reason why needing a darker screen (usually because white hurts the eyes) means you need even more visual stimulation and confusion with a messy background...

Your solution is seeming to work for people who have the problem, so congratulations! But I still don't get it. I have an iPad M4, iPad OS 18.5

I've never had the Image background; it's always been white, and I'm grateful. I turned on Reduced Transparency in Accessibility>Display and in Accessibility>Photos, one at a time and both together, and I don't get the image background-- my background is still white. I powered off and on; still white. It's the same on my iPhone 16. And I'm still grateful.

Is there some other setting that is interacting with this?

I'll leave Reduced on for a while and see if anything changes.