Paul Morris·

How To Get Portrait Lighting Feature On iPhone 7 Plus Without Jailbreak

Every so often, companies like Apple release new devices and update the firmware to bring new functionality and features. That’s typically great news for individuals who upgrade to the latest hardware but not so great for those who feel like they get left behind.

But what if you didn’t need to get left behind where mobile photography was concerned?

Apple’s iPhone 7 Plus started taking mobile photography to the next level for iOS users by introducing a dual-lens camera system which worked in conjunction with Apple’s Portrait mode introduced in iOS 10.

The release of iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X took things even further by offering a stunning Portrait Lighting mode allowing photographs to be captured with glorious depth effects with various type configurations. Unfortunately, that feature has only been accessible by iPhone X and 8 Plus owners, unless you happened to have iPhone 7 Plus and a jailbreak in place.

Now, thanks to an update to a popular photography app which offers “computational photography,” iPhone 7 Plus owners can actually replicate iPhone X photography with unbelievable accuracy thanks to the new “Black Portrait” mode. This is by no means a brand new application. In fact, the said app, Focos, has been offering next-level photography and filters for quite some time.

However, its latest update looks to try to replicate what Apple has achieved with its flagship iPhone X and 8 Plus by introducing a set of new filters called “Black Portrait” and “Background Picture” which allow a user to create stunning depth-effect photographs with different lighting situations directly on iPhone 7 Plus.

It is worth mentioning that due to the nature of what Focos offers and how it goes about its work, it does require a user to have a dual-lens camera device. So, with that in mind, this app is only compatible with iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8 Plus, and Apple’s flagship, iPhone X. It can be used on other devices but the new portrait effects and filters won’t be available as the computation aspect of the app uses the information captured by both camorder in order to work its magic.

If you do own iPhone 7 Plus, are jealous of iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X gorgeous Portrait Lighting functionality, aren’t jailbroken, and want to experience it yourself, then this is the perfect route to achieving that. Yes it’s not the exact same thing and still won’t be available in the native stock Camera app, but is still pretty close to getting the same experience on an unsupported device.

(Download: Focos for iPhone on the iOS App Store)

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