The iPhone 17 camera has a fresh feature to brighten your photos, and some older iPhones may get it too

Apple just introduced its new iPhone 17 lineup, and during the Apple Event on September 9, alongside the new phones, Apple also showed off a new Photographic Style called ‘Bright’. Luckily, it seems that iOS 26 will bring the same feature to some iPhone 16 models, too. 

The next-gen Photographic Styles was a feature introduced with the iPhone 16. The feature is similar to filters, but it works differently. Filters generally apply edits to a photo after it’s been taken. On the other hand, Photographic Styles impacts Apple’s image processing at the time the photo is being taken. The new look is reflected in the Camera app’s viewfinder before the photo is taken.

With the iPhone 17, there’s a new Photographic Style called ‘Bright’. What it does is brighten the skin tone and apply a pop of vibrancy to the entire image.  

The official, stable version of iOS 26 launches next week on Monday, September 15. I personally find that Photographic Styles are fun to use and bring creativity to your images. I’m one of the people that likes filters of any kind, as it allows you to express more with a given photo than just a regular image, in my opinion. It’s a bit similar to painting, you get to choose the colors and the look of it, and it can be as unrealistic as you’d want it to be. 

The new Bright Photographic Style looks quite cool, so I’m happy it won’t be reserved only for the new iPhone 17 series, reportedly. 

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