How Apple Created Portrait Lighting

Apple just released this 1-minute video that offers a short and sweet behind-the-scenes explanation of how the company created the Portrait Lighting feature found in the latest iPhones.

Apple says it started out by studying the art of portraiture through the history of art, from paintings to photographs. After doing that research, the company then reached out to “global image makers” and some of the world’s best photographers.

Software developers then used the “timeless lighting principles” gleaned to train an advanced machine learning system.

The result, according to Apple, is an iPhone that “takes studio quality portraits without the studio.”

Here are the Portrait Lighting portraits seen in the video:

Portrait Lighting is available in the iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X, which use dual cameras to calculate the depth information needed for the lighting simulation.