Shifting focus in portrait photos
The iPhone camera is widely used for taking selfies and portraits. The great thing about portrait photos is that the background is blurred so there is more emphasis on the person’s face. This has become even better since iOS 17, because you can later shift the focus from the person in the foreground to a person in the background. It works on most recent devices.
- Suitable devices for shifting focus
- Adjust focus for portraits
Suitable devices for shifting focus
In order to shift focus, your photo must meet the following requirements:
- iPhone 13 or newer
- iOS 17 or newer
- Portrait photos shot with iOS 16 or newer (i.e. as of September 2022)
If you have an iPhone 15 or newer, photos that recognize a human or pet will automatically be saved with depth information. So you can take a portrait photo of this afterwards and shift the focus. The photo below gives an impression of what is possible: you can focus on a specific person by tapping on it. But you can also turn off the blur effect completely.
Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington DC. No depth effect on the left, focus on the front image in the middle and focus on the rear image on the right.
Adjust focus for portraits
This is how adjusting photos works in portrait mode.
- Take a (portrait) photo with a suitable device, or find a previously taken portrait photo.
- Tap Edit at the top of the screen to adjust the photo.
- Tap the face or object you want to focus on. This is indicated by a yellow square.
- A slider for the depth effect appears at the bottom of the screen. You can change the focal length with this slider. Move the slider so that you have the desired degree of blur.
- You can also turn off the depth feature completely by moving the slider to OFF or tapping the yellow ‘Portrait’ button at the top of the screen.
- Tap Done.
As is known, these adjustments are non-destructive. So you can go back to the original photo at any time, or choose a different focus point. Adjusting the focus point not only works for people and pets, but also for all kinds of other objects that you photograph, such as this hand with iPhone:
As you can see, focusing on an object in the background does not always have a nice effect. With faces it quickly looks as if the photo has failed. Yet it gives you just a few more options to customize the photo.
Want to know more about portrait mode on the iPhone? We have a special tip about that!
