Apple Shares New Ad Highlighting Portrait Lighting on iPhone X

Apple this afternoon shared a new ad designed to show off the Portrait Lighting feature on the iPhone X.

Called "Studio in your pocket," the ad features a woman who pulls out her iPhone X and sees an entire studio's worth of lighting equipment pop up around her.


Portrait Lighting, available on both the front and rear-facing cameras of the iPhone X, is designed to allow you to add studio quality lighting effects to your images, either while taking a shot or during the editing process afterwards.

According to Apple, Portrait Lighting uses sophisticated algorithms to calculate how facial features interact with light, allowing the data to create unique lighting effects like Natural Light, Studio Light (lights up your face), Contour Light (adds dramatic shadows), Stage Light (spotlights your face against a dark background), and Stage Light Mono (Stage Light, but in black and white).

Apple has shared several other iPhone X and iPhone 8 videos showcasing the Portrait Lighting feature, including "Portrait of Her," "A New Light," and a video titled simply "Portrait Lighting" that explains how the feature was developed.

Apple has also shared several tutorial videos designed to each iPhone users how to use Portrait Lighting.

Popular Stories

WWDC25 Live Coverage Feature 1

WWDC 2025 Apple Event Live Keynote Coverage: iOS 26, macOS Tahoe, and More

Monday June 9, 2025 9:00 am PDT by
Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) starts today with the traditional keynote kicking things off at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time. MacRumors is on hand for the event and we'll be sharing details and our thoughts throughout the day. We're expecting to see a number of software-related announcements led by a design revamp across Apple's platforms that will also see the numbering of all of...
General Apps Messages Redux

iOS 26: New Messages and Phone App Features Leaked Ahead of WWDC

Friday June 6, 2025 7:27 am PDT by
Apple is planning to announce several new features for the Messages and Phone apps on iOS 26, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. In a lengthy report outlining his WWDC 2025 expectations today, Gurman said that the two main changes in the Messages app will be the ability to create polls, as well as the option to set a background image within a conversation. 9to5Mac was first to report...
liquid glass

Apple Announces All-New 'Liquid Glass' Software Redesign

Monday June 9, 2025 10:13 am PDT by
Apple today announced a complete redesign of all of its major software platforms called "Liquid Glass." Announced simultaneously for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, visionOS, and CarPlay, Liquid Glass forms a new universal design language for the first time. At its WWDC 2025 keynote address, Apple's software chief Craig Federighi said "Apple Silicon has become dramatically more powerful...
iPhone 17 Air Size Feature

'iPhone 17 Air' Launching Later This Year With These 17 New Features

Friday June 6, 2025 6:17 am PDT by
While the so-called "iPhone 17 Air" is not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the ultra-thin device. Overall, the iPhone 17 Air sounds like a mixed bag. While the device is expected to have an impressively thin and light design, rumors indicate it will have some compromises compared to iPhone 17 Pro models, including worse battery life, only a single ...
AirTag Backpack

New AirTag With Three Upgrades is 'Nearly Ready' to Launch

Sunday June 8, 2025 11:44 am PDT by
Apple's long-rumored AirTag 2 might be coming soon. In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman briefly mentioned that a new AirTag is "nearly ready" to launch. Last year, he said that it would be released around the middle of 2025, and the midpoint of the year is just a few weeks away. "The new AirTag is nearly ready, having been prepared for launch over the past several...
macOS Tahoe Render

macOS Tahoe Might Support One Fewer Mac Than Previously Rumored

Saturday June 7, 2025 5:27 am PDT by
macOS 26 will drop support for several older Intel-based Mac models currently compatible with macOS Sequoia, according to a private account on X with a proven track record of leaking information about Apple's software platforms. macOS 26 will be compatible with the following Mac models, the account said:MacBook Air (M1 and later) MacBook Pro (2019 and later) iMac (2020 and later) Mac...

Top Rated Comments

TwoBytes Avatar
92 months ago
so this as is promoting 'portrait lighting' - the feature on the iPhone that supposedly does away with the need to be in a studio, but this is filmed in a studio with real portrait lighting? to get these amazing shots?

hmmm...
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mattopotamus Avatar
92 months ago
I love the portrait mode, but the lightnings just never turn out right when I try the other options.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
RealAppleFan Avatar
92 months ago
That'sOneGreatAd

-TypedFromNewMacbookButSpacebarDoesn'tWorkClassActionPleaseHurry
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
PaulRustad007 Avatar
92 months ago
Hair, frizzy things, fare-skinned people, all of these are problems for Portrait Mode on my X. Complicated backgrounds are out as well.....it just does not do what they advertise it to do. Some settings, it is awesome, others not so much.


This one is good.......

this one is not.....

I love this one.....


So, its an OK feature some of the times.....

Attachment Image

Attachment Image

Attachment Image
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Fender2112 Avatar
92 months ago
Really? Did we really need another article about this?
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
citysnaps Avatar
92 months ago
Wow, so much advertising for a stupid image filter. Really?? Did Apple just invent a filter? LOL!
No.

What Apple did, is create a useful camera mode for people who want to take casual portraits of their friends and family. But don't have the skill and years of experience of a seasoned portraitist, know little about lighting, and lack a set of lights and modifiers.

Some people with a creative spark will understand the above and be happy making portraits. Others not understanding who the feature is intended for, will go out of their way to ridicule and trash Apple because the results won't be up to those produced by Richard Avedon, Sally Mann, and Arnold Newman.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)