Some iPhone 14 owners, including myself, have complained about the cameras highlighting nook and cranny on one’s skin. While this is great for capturing the wet, gooey texture of a tree frog in the jungle or the tiny hairs on a spider’s legs, most people have no desire to show off their peach fuzz, enlarged pores, and other skin defects.
That being said, I stumbled upon a few solutions (thank you Reddit) that may help your iPhone 14 produce more palatable selfies for your Instagram and other social media platforms.
Why does the iPhone 14 make your skin texture look so bizarre?
Whenever I’d take selfies with the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus, the picture looks great in the viewfinder, but when I open it in the Photos app, I am taken aback. Every aspect of my skin — even subtle features I can barely see with my naked eye — was highlighted. Oof!
Skin texture in iPhone 14 Plus selfie (Image credit: Future)
It appears that the software is over-sharpening and over-contrasting photos to high hell during the post-processing stage, which is why your skin texture’s pores appear too defined and exaggerated in your iPhone 14 selfies.
As such, I decided to do some Google research to rectify the issue. I stumbled upon a Reddit complaint thread, published 7 months ago, that begged for help regarding the iPhone 14’s ultra-sharp photos.
“Just got the new iPhone 14 after using my XR for years,” thanarealnobody said. “I’ve noticed that my skin looks awful on this new camera. It makes the shadows super dark and every single bit of my texture on my skin is highlighted. Does anyone else have this problem? Is there any way to fix this?”
While many replies commiserated with the original poster (OP), one commenter pointed the OP to a 2020 Apple Community Forum thread (opens in new tab) that helped them tremendously. A slew of Redditors chimed in to thank the helpful commenter, adding that the tip from the forum fixed the issue. Check out the next section to see if the tip helps you, too.
How to make your skin texture look better on iPhone 14
1. Go to the Settings app.
2. Scroll down to Photos.
3. Turn off View Full HDR.
And that’s it! Take a photo and see whether that makes a change.
Another solution that seemed to resonate with iPhone 14 owners is taking a picture in live mode. Once you’ve done that, edit the photo and choose the live mode shot that looks the smoothest and save it.
A final suggestion is using Photographic Styles. The iPhone 14 tends to add a grayish tone to my skin texture, which exacerbates the ultra-sharpened photo problem. However, by applying Photographic Styles (opens in new tab), particularly the Vibrant preset, it helped make selfies look a little unsightly.
Let’s hope the post-processing camera software on the next-gen iPhone 15 is a little less harsh.
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