Apple Photos creating random black spot in white of eye(s)

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Apple Photos creating random black spot in white of eye(s)

I'm discovering an irregular-shaped black "spot" in the white area(s) of an eye in some people in some of the people photos I take (often couples, small groups). See attached examples. This is happening intermittently with photos taken using both iPhone 15 Pro Max (running iOS 17.1, 24MP) and viewed on the phone (I can't seem to upload the photos into my iMac, the app keeps restarting in mid-retrieval of my phone photos) and in photos taken using my 60 MP Sony A7RV camera and imported (via USB) into my late 2015 Intel iMac running Monterey 12.7.1.

So do I conclude it's the Apple Photo software or ??? I noticed in some group photos a given person's eye just looked a little "off" and asymmetrical in appearance and when I enlarged the image, the black spot is immediately seen. This spot is often on one side of the pupil in one eye, and sometimes the black spot appears on both sides of the pupil in one eye or in both eyes. If I take two group photos of the same group a few seconds apart ("blink" insurance shots), a black spot might appear in a man's or woman's eye in the first photo but not the second photo. I've had to upload such "spot" photos to my iMac so that I can enlarge the image and use the retouching tool in Photos to remove the spot(s). Sure would like to fix this puzzling anomaly!

iMac 27″, macOS 12.7

Posted on Nov 1, 2023 08:25 AM

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Answer 1

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cyberstever

Level 1

14 points

Apr 28, 2024 03:27 PM in response to dlincolnb

I've seen this happen when applying the Auto Enhance (wand) to photos or more directly, by using the red-eye option (which is also triggered by the wand) in the edit panel. It doesn't happen all the time and I haven't seen a clear pattern of when it does. If there was an option to turn off Red-Eye as an item not triggered by Auto Enhance, that would be great.

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Answer 2

dlincolnb Author

Level 1

5 points

Nov 1, 2023 11:51 AM in response to dlincolnb

I'm discovering an irregular-shaped black "spot" in the white area(s) of an eye in some people in some of the people photos I take (often couples, small groups). See attached examples. This is happening intermittently with photos taken using both iPhone 15 Pro Max (running iOS 17.1, 24MP) and viewed on the phone (I can't seem to upload the photos into my iMac, the app keeps restarting in mid-retrieval of my phone photos) and in photos taken using my 60 MP Sony A7RV camera and imported (via USB) into my late 2015 Intel iMac running Monterey 12.7.1.

I MIGHT have narrowed down the source of this mystery annoyance, and it's interesting that I've seen other posts now from years back with the same inquiry, and nowhere have I found any direct Apple answer other than "restart your phone". I typically click on Auto Edit per photo and then crop and fine-tune brightness, saturation, etc after that. When I tried selecting an affected photo and then selecting "Revert to Original", the black artifacts or "spots" in the eye(s) disappear. This would all seem to suggest the Apple Photo software, specifically the Auto Edit option, is the source? IF this is an Apple Photos Auto Edit anomaly, is there a fix (other than not clicking on Auto-Enhance) coming and acknowledgement of this issue from Apple?

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Answer 3

Jun 4, 2024 07:10 AM in response to dlincolnb

I never use auto-enhance-- like many auto-things, they work sometimes; sometimes they don't.

But this looks like the result of red-eye correction. (That's also something that I find to be hit or miss, depending on the software.) It may have happened when the eye moved a bit from cropping. I wonder what happens if you don't crop? Or if you do the cropping first, and then the red-eye correction. Sometimes this happens with other additions, and they fix themselves after Photos does a re-scan-- does this get better after awhile?

Can you try that and let us know?

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Answer 4

Jun 4, 2024 05:11 AM in response to cyberstever

I’m photographer and this is very annoying thing that happens sometimes when applying auto settings …. But I try edit manually (without pressing the auto button) and copy and paste the edit settings on other photos and….. bang !!!! The black spots are there too…. I’m considering to change my phone to Samsung because of this problem … I use this feature everyday … and for me this is an issue ignored by apple because it happens a long time and nothing changes … I’m giving up …

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Answer 5

egin_5

Level 1

14 points

Jul 1, 2024 08:59 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

In my experience, this is a relatively new problem with Auto-Enhance, and it only happens to me in the Photos app on my MacBook--I do not get the black spots in the whites of eyes when tapping Auto-Enhance in Photos on my iPhone (BTW, I almost NEVER use the Red Eye Correction in Photos, Apple's red-eye correction is absolutely THE WORST I've ever used!) My fix for now is clicking the Auto-Enhance wand, noting the (approximate) corrections it makes on Brilliance, Highlights, Shadows, Contrast, etc, undoing the Auto-Enhance & manually approximating the various corrections. Not the most elegant fix, but it leaves the eyeballs alone, haha. I like cyberstever's suggestion of decoupling the Red Eye Correction from the Auto-Enhance like it used to be, but my guess is Apple is not listening...very frustrating.

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Apple Photos creating random black spot in white of eye(s)

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