Focos
Take control of depth and bokeh in photos taken on dual-lens iPhones
Free (basic) to $9.99 From Xiaodong Wang, focos.me Made for iPhone 7 Plus, 8 Plus or X Needs iOS 11 or later
Apple’s dual-lens iPhones — the 7 Plus, 8 Plus and X — are able to use the Camera app’s Portrait mode and create DSLR-style depth effects. They do this by taking two shots and recording a depth map with information about the distance between foreground and background, so you can isolate your subject or alter the bokeh effect, where the subject is in view but the background is blurred.
Focos gives you much more control over depth-editing. You can take photos using the app or open pictures that were shot in Portrait mode and thus have a depth map embedded, then tap on the background or foreground to refocus on that area. Note that basic features such as refocus and aperture work in free mode, but you need to unlock advanced ones (for $0.99 a month, $5.99 a year, or $9.99 lifetime).
Editing tools start with simple crop and rotate. Next is an Aperture section where a slider enables you to change the virtual aperture size from f/1.4 all the way to f/20. At wider apertures (lower values), the background is much more blurred while the subject stays in focus. A second control, bokeh shape, lets you choose custom shapes for the bokeh effect. It’s a nice touch, though much more effective where it is able to pick out points in the background rather than straight lines or uniform areas.
The Highlights and Vivid sections provide sliders to alter the lighting and color intensity of a selected area, and the Lenses presets let you simulate the apertures of several real-life lenses, though the differences are quite small.
In a final Effects section you can drag a slider to spin the image around in 3D to see how the depth map breaks down. It’s cool to look at, but the more useful tools are slightly hidden here. Each of the Depth Filter tools affects either the background or foreground brightness, contrast, exposure, hue, sharpness, HDR, and other parameters. You can also add motion blur, tilt shift, and more creative effects.
Focos doesn’t provide much in the way of actual shooting control — just grid, flash, and basic exposure. But its ability to refocus pictures and process foreground and background elements separately in multiple ways works very well. Features could be signposted more clearly for new users, but Focos is still the best way to unlock the power of depth maps in dual-lens iPhones.
The bottom line. Focos goes far beyond what Apple’s Camera app can do with depthmapped images on dual-lens iPhones. Hollin Jones