Photos Makes Dark Skin Tones too Dark

Question

Level 1

4 points

Photos Makes Dark Skin Tones too Dark

Photos taken on iPhone 13 of individuals with darker skin tones initially look fine, but the auto-“enhancements” in the photo app make the person appear darker and make the photos unusable. There isn’t a way to prevent this editing that happens in photos. I have changed HDR settings for new pictures and don’t know if this will help. Regardless, existing photos still get automatically “enhanced” making them unusable. You can see what the photo should look like when you first swipe to it. How can we keep it formatted in it’s original state?

Posted on Jul 11, 2025 10:48 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Jul 14, 2025 08:26 AM in response to Gugule

Dark tones are always hard. For portraits in a studio have the advantage of your being able to adjust the lighting, but for natural light you don't get that option. While taking the picture the camera may lower the contrast to make it easier to frame the photo, but getting bright sky and dark tones to all show equally well in the final version may take extra work. In editing, Black Point, Shadows, and Contrast all make slightly different adjustments with the dark portions of the picture. And if you lighten the dark parts you may have to reduce the highlights. Brilliance is a good thing to try. Sometimes you just need more sophisticated software.

Reply