Blue Tint on iPhone Photos of TV Screen

[SBUP4M]

My wife has an iPhone 8 Plus. Occasionally, she takes a photo of something that catches her interest on our TV. Just recently, such photos come out with a blue tint, whereas they previously always showed the accurate colors on the TV screen. This problem does not occur when she takes photos of other things. What caused her TV photos to tint blue? Did she accidentally change the iPhone photo settings? How can she fix this? Thank you.

 

[chscag]

I'm by no means a photo expert, but I suspect your wife may have accidentally invoked a setting for the camera such as a filter. I rarely if ever take photos with my iPhone but we have many folks here in our forums who have lots of experience with their phones and taking photos. Hopefully someone will have an answer for you shortly.

And welcome back to the forums. Good to see that you remembered your user name and password.

 

[IWT]

A warm welcome to Mac-Forums and thank you for your post.

I am assuming that your wife's iPhone 8+ is running the latest iOS which is 13.3.1

I agree with our Senior Admin, chscag, that this may be a settings issue.

May I suggest the following:

Open Settings > Camera and then tap on "Preserve Settings". Check that "Camera Mode" is Off - and that "Creative Controls" is also Off - and that "Live Photo" is On

There is an explanation under each of these which tells you what they mean. In brief, unchecking Camera Mode means when she turns on the Camera, it always defaults to "Photo".

Similarly, turning off the Creative Controls means that should she have deliberately or mistakenly altered these filter controls, they will be reset to "normal" rather than be remembered from the last time.

Live Photo is a great feature, but best not used for photographing a TV screen. By checking this seeing as On, it means that when she opens Camera app, it will default to how she set it up - (Off is best) rather than automatically switching this feature on.

So make sure that she turns Off Live Photo when she uses the Camera app. To do that, with Camera app on, look at the top right of the screen. The Live Photo icon when OFF shows a white circular target with a white line through it. If ON, it only shows the white concentric circles with no line through it. To change it On/Off, just tap on it.

Lastly, and I'm not sure this matters so much - she might want to turn OFF "Smart HDR" because, although great for bright outdoor shots, the multiple exposure technique used on the flickering screen of a TV, could distort the colour rendition.

To do this, Settings > Camera (as above) and the very last option as you scroll down is "Smart HDR" - turn Off.

Please post back on how this goes.

Ian

 

[DomS]

A warm welcome to Mac-Forums and thank you for your post.

I am assuming that your wife's iPhone 8+ is running the latest iOS which is 13.3.1

I agree with our Senior Admin, chscag, that this may be a settings issue.

May I suggest the following:

Open Settings > Camera and then tap on "Preserve Settings". Check that "Camera Mode" is Off - and that "Creative Controls" is also Off - and that "Live Photo" is On

There is an explanation under each of these which tells you what they mean. In brief, unchecking Camera Mode means when she turns on the Camera, it always defaults to "Photo".

Similarly, turning off the Creative Controls means that should she have deliberately or mistakenly altered these filter controls, they will be reset to "normal" rather than be remembered from the last time.

Live Photo is a great feature, but best not used for photographing a TV screen. By checking this seeing as On, it means that when she opens Camera app, it will default to how she set it up - (Off is best) rather than automatically switching this feature on.

So make sure that she turns Off Live Photo when she uses the Camera app. To do that, with Camera app on, look at the top right of the screen. The Live Photo icon when OFF shows a white circular target with a white line through it. If ON, it only shows the white concentric circles with no line through it. To change it On/Off, just tap on it.

Lastly, and I'm not sure this matters so much - she might want to turn OFF "Smart HDR" because, although great for bright outdoor shots, the multiple exposure technique used on the flickering screen of a TV, could distort the colour rendition.

To do this, Settings > Camera (as above) and the very last option as you scroll down is "Smart HDR" - turn Off.

Please post back on how this goes.

Ian

What was the answer? I just got an iPhone 13 pro max. Video of tv is ok, but if I take a picture , it’s blue tinted.

 

[IWT]

What was the answer? I just got an iPhone 13 pro max. Video of tv is ok, but if I take a picture , it’s blue tinted.

Welcome to our Forums. A pleasure to have you join us.

The Original Poster never came back to comment on my suggestions.

You have to realise that things have moved on apace since March 2020. The design of the camera system and the change from iOS 13.3.1 to iOS 15.5 means that some of my comments above no longer apply as they have been superseded. Some of the settings I referred to have gone.

It's easy to understand why a video would render a fairly accurate rendition, but a still photograph is a near instant action and colour accuracy is much harder to achieve. As blue is a dominant colour on home TVs, a tint is difficult to eradicate.

The only thing that might help is for you to experiment with "View Full HDR" turned ON and OFF to see if that helps.

This setting can be found in Settings > Photos > HDR.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

BTW, if you are looking to have your photographs go automatically to "My Photo Stream" and from there to appear automatically in the Photos app on your Mac/PC (if you have one); there are new settings that, for the moment anyway, need to be set.

Settings > Photos > Transfer To Mac or PC > Automatic (not Keep Originals)

AND

Settings > Camera > Formats > Most Compatible (not High Efficiency)

It didn't used to be necessary to change these, but a glitch in recent upgrades and updates means that, for the moment anyway, you need these settings.

I have an iPhone 13 Pro as well (not the max).

Please tell us if these comments help your situation.

Ian

 

[AutoMatters]

Welcome to our Forums. A pleasure to have you join us.

The Original Poster never came back to comment on my suggestions.

You have to realise that things have moved on apace since March 2020. The design of the camera system and the change from iOS 13.3.1 to iOS 15.5 means that some of my comments above no longer apply as they have been superseded. Some of the settings I referred to have gone.

It's easy to understand why a video would render a fairly accurate rendition, but a still photograph is a near instant action and colour accuracy is much harder to achieve. As blue is a dominant colour on home TVs, a tint is difficult to eradicate.

The only thing that might help is for you to experiment with "View Full HDR" turned ON and OFF to see if that helps.

This setting can be found in Settings > Photos > HDR.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

BTW, if you are looking to have your photographs go automatically to "My Photo Stream" and from there to appear automatically in the Photos app on your Mac/PC (if you have one); there are new settings that, for the moment anyway, need to be set.

Settings > Photos > Transfer To Mac or PC > Automatic (not Keep Originals)

AND

Settings > Camera > Formats > Most Compatible (not High Efficiency)

It didn't used to be necessary to change these, but a glitch in recent upgrades and updates means that, for the moment anyway, you need these settings.

I have an iPhone 13 Pro as well (not the max).

Please tell us if these comments help your situation.

Ian

I have an iPhone 14 ProMax. When taking photos of the screen of my LG OLED TV (83-inch), colors that look white and gray to my eyes, turn blue.

 

[IWT]

@AutoMatters

Welcome to our Forums and thanks for the post.

I suggest that, instead of tagging on to this oldish thread, you would be better creating a new Post especially as your question doesn't really bear much resemblance to the subject being discussed above.

Ian

 

[Slydude]

@AutoMatters

I think starting a new thread is a good idea. Please provide any additional details that you can. It might also help to post a sample of one of the screenshots.