Halide Mark III Previewed: One-Tap Color Grading, HDR, and a New UI

Lux, the developers behind celebrated iPhone camera app Halide, and the award-winning mobile video app Kino teased Halide Mark III today, previewing some of the features coming to Halide 3.0 next year (hopefully).

With Halide Mark III in development, Lux, which comprises just one developer, Ben Sandofsky, and a designer, Sebastiaan de With, wanted to get user feedback in as early as possible.

“We’re a small team of one developer and one designer, so it can take months to launch big features,” Sandofsky writes. “It’s risky to invest months of our time on features without any feedback from users. Even worse, months of radio-silence can leave customers (that is you!) feeling ignored.”

Ben Sandofsky (left) and Sebastiaan de With (right) | Credit: Apple

To that end, Lux just launched a new Discord channel for Halide and Kino. Lux says it will use this Discord to engage users, publish sample photos, and share early TestFlight builds of upcoming app updates. However, the new Discord is much more than that.

“We thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to form a community about more our products?’ If you’re just a passionate photographer who wants to make friends and hone their craft, check out our new Challenge: the 2025 Halide and Kino 52-week challenges!”

Each week, the Discord will get a new photography challenge, which will each include resources and tips for users. Lux promises that there will be real rewards for community members who complete the entire year-long challenge, — “including some limited edition Halide and Kino swag!”

“You’re also welcome to just join that Discord to connect with other Halide and Kino users, get tips from the best, share your shots and learn from each other.”

Kino has one-tap color grading, and soon, Halide will, too.

Returning to Halide Mark III, Lux previewed three specific new features, the first focused on color grading. Lux has dabbled with image processing numerous times over the years with Halide and, more recently, with Kino. Halide received specialized upscaling in 2021, and fully embraced bespoke image processing with Process Zero in August.

This new pipeline relies on no artificial intelligence or computational photography, promising an “anti-intelligent” update that makes iPhone photos look natural and much more realistic.

Halide’s ‘Process Zero’ takes AI and computational features out of iPhone photography

“Process Zero was our experiment in developing a signature look for Halide. Little did we know it would completely changed how our customers used the app,” the Halide developers write.

Sandofsky and de With say the number one request they’ve received from Halide users is to bring one-tap color grading, like is available in Kino, to Halide.

“We are way ahead of you. We envision an app that not only bundled gorgeous film looks within the app, but also let you import looks built by other people. In fact, we built Kino as an experiment in the future of Halide!”

The next big feature of Halide 3.0 is the reworked high-dynamic range (HDR) photography. Current iPhone models can display at super-high nits, meaning they can show very bright areas of photos.

By default, the built-in iPhone camera app shoots HDR photos. However, Process Zero in Halide does not support HDR, “for a few good reasons.”

“From a product perspective, there’s an issue of taste, with a lot of cameras producing obnoxious HDR images. We want to take our time and come up with a thoughtful and nuanced HDR look,” Lux explains.

Beyond this, there are also significant compatibility issues. While recent iPhone models show HDR without a problem, along with some social media platforms like Instagram, support is not widespread. Some web browsers work with HDR, while others don’t. And the same goes for hardware — not all iPads or computer monitors support HDR, even though many do.

“Most websites, including our own blog hosted by Ghost, cannot display HDR images. I embedded that Instagram example because it seems major social networks are finally on-board. We think compatibility will improve thanks to iOS 18, which introduces, ‘Adaptive HDR,’ a technology that allows old file formats such as JPEG to support HDR. This should make it easier for every platform to hop on the HDR bandwagon,” says Sandofsky.

He and de With and confident that HDR is “about to hit a tipping point,” so Halide needs to get up to speed with its support, especially as the team works on improving its color grading technology and image processing.

These new features will arrive alongside a major revision to how Halide Mark III looks and operates.

“Next year, Halide Mark II turns 5. iPhone photography has changed a lot in five years, and we’ve learned a lot more about our users and our products. It’s a perfect time to make some big changes,” says Lux.

In the spirit of evolution, Halide will get a redesign. The refreshed UI/UX will “follow HDR and Grade support, because form should follow function.”

While there’s no preview of the redesigned app yet, Lux promises it will be “gorgeous.” If the new color grading feature works as planned, users should expect it to be a significant focus of the UI, like it is with Kino.

When is Halide Mark III Going to Arrive?

While Lux shared a lot of information about Halide Mark III, it isn’t sure when it will arrive.

“We want to ship Mark III as soon as we can. We’d love to ship it in 2025. That sounds doable at this moment, but we’ll keep you posted as things progress,” Lux says.

Halide subscribers won’t need to wait until public release to try the app’s new features, though. Early access details will be shared in the new Discord as soon as they’re available.

Image credits: Lux