Project Indigo: An AI camera app that wants to think like a photographer
Adobe Project Indigo is an experimental AI camera app for iPhone that combines computational photography, real‑time feedback, and generative editing tools to help users capture cleaner, better‑composed photos directly at the point of shooting instead of relying only on heavy post‑processing later. That ambition matters more than the marketing label: Indigo is less a filter app and more a testing ground for how much of photography’s craft can be embedded into the camera itself. The app launched in June 2025 as a computational photography-focused camera promising desktop‑quality noise reduction, upscaling, and a natural, SLR‑like look on mobile. Now Adobe has added AI Playground, a cluster of generative tools that critique your shots, remove distractions, and restyle scenes inside the same interface. For an industry obsessed with post‑capture wizardry, Indigo’s bet is clear: if AI is going to shape photography, it might as well start while you still have the subject in front of you.
AI Playground: Four AI tools built for real shooting, not toy demos
AI Playground is Indigo’s new AI layer, and it is opinionated about what matters for mobile photographers. The feature is split into four sections—Object Editing, Styles, Photo Guidance, and Custom Edit—each accessed via simple buttons and toggles instead of fiddly brush tools. That design choice reveals Adobe’s intent: this is meant to speed up a real workflow, not be a novelty demo. Object Editing handles the practical fixes. You can remove distractions like people, cars, signs, or other categories you type in, and you can blur the background to get a shallow depth of field effect that mimics fast glass on a DSLR. In effect, it’s Lightroom’s and Photoshop’s content‑aware tricks, moved into a live AI camera app on iPhone, and tuned for one‑tap cleanup instead of pixel‑peeping edits.
From snapshots to critiques: Indigo as an always‑on photo tutor
Where Indigo becomes genuinely interesting is Photo Guidance. After you snap a frame, AI Playground can critique the photo, noting what works and what does not, and then suggest edits or how to reshoot while you are still in the moment. Another button goes further, giving suggestions for your next shot before you press the shutter again. This turns the AI camera app for iPhone into something closer to a live coach than a passive tool. According to Adobe’s Nextcam Team, “our goal is to explore how generative AI can assist mobile photographers at the point of capture.” That is a subtle but important shift: feedback is no longer an after‑action report in a separate editing app, it is fused into the act of shooting. For learners, that could flatten the curve; for experienced shooters, it becomes a second opinion they can choose to ignore—or argue with.
Custom edits and style shifts: When AI stops being invisible
Despite Indigo’s roots in natural‑looking images, AI Playground also embraces more overt generative art. The Styles section can re‑render your photo as pen‑and‑ink sketches, ink‑line drawings with color wash, or painterly looks that radically change the scene. Custom Edit goes further: you type a text prompt, and the system applies more directed changes—like moving a lantern to a mountain ledge and adding sunlight from a specific direction. This is where the app walks a tightrope. On one side, computational photography quietly removes noise, reflections, fog and background clutter to produce cleaner, more detailed images with greater depth. On the other, generative styles and heavy scene edits risk turning Indigo into another aesthetic toy. Whether creators see these as serious mobile photography tools or as Instagram‑age gimmicks will depend on how often they reach for Styles and Custom Edit versus the subtler correction features.
Limited test today, paid feature tomorrow: What Indigo signals about AI cameras
Access to AI Playground is intentionally tight. Adobe says only “a few percent” of Project Indigo users can use it, and only for a few weeks, while the team studies how people behave with generative editing at capture time. Participation requires opting in to share button presses, but not prompts or uploads. Project Indigo itself remains a free experimental computational photography app on the App Store. Adobe is explicit that this generosity will not last: if AI Playground proves popular, they may extend the experiment, expand the user pool, and “eventually offer a paid version.” In other words, Indigo is both a lab and a pricing probe for future AI‑first mobile photography tools. If this experiment works, expect more camera apps where AI not only cleans your files, but critiques your eye, reimagines your scenes, and quietly blurs the line between taking a photo and inventing one.
