We tested the claims that the iPhone XS selfie camera makes faces look too smooth - check out the results for yourself
In indoor office lighting, the iPhone XS Max undoubtedly smoothed out the face of my colleague, Avery Hartmans. Shadows were also reduced, which could be a result of the new Smart HDR feature in the iPhone XS phones.
The smoothing is less pronounced here, but it's still there, especially with face sheen. The colors of my face and lips are less red and more uniform in the iPhone XS selfie, too.
Finally, my colleague Kif Leswing in the same office lighting setting. The smoothing isn't as noticeable, but face sheen is greatly reduced.
In a dimly-lit room, Avery's skin was again smoothed out and colors were evened out.
The iPhone XS made my face look like it was airbrushed or painted here.
The same goes for Kif's low-light selfies with the iPhone XS Max, where his face is smoothed out considerably compared to the iPhone X selfie. Face sheen is reduced and colors are more uniform in the iPhone XS selfie.
In a bright outdoor environment, Avery's face was still smoothed out, which doesn't align with the noise-reduction theory. Colors were also greatly evened out in the iPhone XS selfie.
There's a little bit of smoothing going on here, as well as some color uniformity on the iPhone XS' selfie.
The iPhone XS changed Kif's face color, and his skin was also a little smoother in the iPhone XS' selfie.
So what's going on with the iPhone XS selfies?
There's no telling exactly what's going on. The noise-reduction theory doesn't stand well with our tests, as noise reduction shouldn't take effect in a well-lit environment. However, it clearly has some effect in the brightly-lit selfies we took above.
Noise reduction isn't usually a desired feature in a brightly-lit environment, as it usually blurs away details. Perhaps what we're seeing it an overly aggressive noise reduction feature on the iPhone XS that activates itself even in a bright situation.
Whether people like the effects is up to them. But perhaps what’s bothering some people is the fact that there’s no option to turn off the excessive smoothing effect.
We reached out to Apple to find out more, but the company declined to comment.
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