Apple released iOS 26 on Monday, a few months after the company announced it at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June. The update includes a liquid glass redesign, call screening, and new ringtones for your iPhone. If you have a device from the iPhone 16 lineup, you’ll also get a new photo style in your camera app.
Photo Styles are visual effects you can add to your camera before taking a photo. They’ve been around since the release of the iPhone 13 in 2021. Apple improved the feature in the iPhone 16 in 2024 so it can better understand shadows, skin tones, and other elements of a photo.
Apple introduced a new photography style called Bright at its “Awe Dropping” event on September 9th, which was shown off alongside the iPhone 17 lineup. Apple wrote online that the new style “brightens skin tones and adds a pop of vibrancy to the image.” Bright will be coming to both the iPhone 17 and iPhone 16 lineups, meaning it’s not locked behind the brand new iPhone.
Even if you know where your iPhone’s photo apps are, iOS 26 revamps the camera app so they can be hard to find. Here’s where to find these features, including Bright, in iOS 26.
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Where to find photo styles in your iPhone camera
Here’s where to find Vivid and other photographic styles in iOS 26.
1. Open the camera.
2. Tap the six dots in the top right corner of the screen.
3. Polish Style Area
A grid of dots will appear near the bottom of the screen, and a bar near the top will show numerical measurements of tone and color.
You can swipe the camera view left and right to see different photo styles. If you swipe right, you’ll see styles like vibrant and bright. If you swipe left, you’ll see styles like amber and gold — you’ll also see vivid here if you have iOS 26 and a compatible iPhone.
Here is the full list of iPhones that can access the vivid style in iOS 26.
For more on Apple News, here’s everything the company announced at its “Awe Dropping” event and our iOS 26 cheat sheet .
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