Anyone who has an iPhone and has taken a photo of their child or pet knows the dilemma of Portrait mode. Portrait mode adds that lovely soft bokeh effect to the background of the image and draws attention to the subject – ideal when your toddler or cat is doing something adorable. But taking an extra second to switch from the standard camera app to Portrait mode sometimes means missing the moment entirely.
Now, there’s good news for iPhone 15 owners: all the latest iPhones (iPhone 15, 15 Plus, 15 Pro, and 15 Pro Max) will let you apply portrait mode. after Capture images taken in standard camera mode. You can even change the focus to a different subject or part of the frame if you wish. That’s how it all works. (I followed these steps on an iPhone 15 Pro running iOS 17.0.2.)
First things first, not every photo you take can be converted into a Portrait mode photo. The phone needs to record depth information to apply the portrait effect after the fact, and it doesn’t do this for every photo. The iPhone 15 willpower Automatically saves depth information when it detects a face, cat, or dog in the frame. It will also save depth information every time you tap the frame to focus on a subject.
You’ll know it’s working when you see an iris icon appear in the bottom left corner of the frame while you take a photo. You can tap the icon to see the portrait effect while taking the photo, but it’s not necessary. Simply take the photo as you normally would and you can convert it later.
As long as the depth information has been saved, this is all you need to do:
You have a few more options if you want to modify the results.
Once you’re happy with how everything looks, tap Made to save the image; You can always go back to the original by opening it again in Photos and undoing the changes.
A couple more notes: You can use this feature with the phone’s main, telephoto, and selfie cameras. It will also work if you have Live Photos enabled, although depth information is only saved for the cover frame of your Live Photos burst. That means you can apply Portrait mode to a live photo, but only that keyframe will have the blurred background effect. If you choose a different frame (for example, one where everyone is looking at the camera), you won’t be able to apply Portrait mode. we can not quite I have it all, unfortunately.
