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| Image: Lux |
Hot on the heels of a summer filled with companies talking about using AI to improve the photography experience, the makers of the iPhone and iPad photography app Halide are promising something different. An update to the app has added what the company calls “Process Zero,” a mode that uses “zero AI and zero computational photography.”
The company pitches Process Zero as a way to get total control over your images, making your phone a “classic camera.” You set your ISO and shutter speed (or let the app do it automatically), press the capture button, and that’s it. It snaps a single exposure, and does no post-processing. At the end, you have a HEIF and a DNG.
Halide will let you adjust the exposure, but that’s the only editing you can do in the app. The Raws are, of course, compatible with other apps like Adobe Camera Raw.
In its blog post, Lux, the company behind Halide, says that the iPhone’s aggressive noise reduction was a big part of what inspired it to add the mode. Previously, the app had a toggle that let users turn off computational features like Deep Fusion and Smart HDR, but it could only do so much. According to the blog post: “Noise reduction is just one of those things that gives iPhone photos their look. Because Halide was built on top of the system processing, we had to come along for the ride.”
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| Default iPhone Camera | Apple ProRaw | Halide Reduced Processing | Halide Process Zero | ||||||||||||
Lux makes it clear that the mode won’t be for everyone. Since it’s only a single exposure, the shots will almost certainly have more noise (or “grain,” as the blog post politely puts it) and less dynamic range. That also means no night mode.
Halide Process Zero currently can’t capture 48MP Raws on the iPhone 15 Pro, only 12MP ones. According to Lux’s blog post, “some flagship features of the iPhone are deeply integrated with algorithms,” so getting a full-sensor readout instead of a binned picture “isn’t possible.” It hints that it may become possible if Apple decides to allow it.
For those looking for the most detail possible, that may put Process Zero at a disadvantage to Apple’s own ProRaw format. However, Process Zero doesn’t include some of the computational photography tricks that Apple’s Raws might. According to a support document, Apple ProRaw doesn’t preclude features like Smart HDR, Deep Fusion, or Night mode. Unlike Apple’s mode, Halide’s new mode will also work on non-Pro iPhones.
In the blog post, the company also announced that it’s working on a new version of its app called Halide Mark III. It plans to roll some Mark III features out early, which is why Process Zero launched this week.
As part of the update, it’ll also raise the price of the membership that lets you use Halide from $11.99 a year to $19.99 a year, starting next week. (Users who subscribe at $11.99 will have that price locked in.) Alternatively, there’s a $60 one-time purchase option, which Lux says will include access to Halide III when it releases.
You can download Halide here.