The instant film look on iPhone: Instax and Polaroid-style prints from RAW

26 October 2026 · By Abu Ashraf Masnun

Instant film is the only photography where the photo is also the souvenir. You press the button, the print slides out, everyone crowds round to watch it appear, and someone writes on the bottom with a felt-tip. An iPhone can't do the crowding-round part (well, it can, but it's not as fun), but it can get remarkably close to how the picture looks, and how it looks on the page.

An instant film look comes from the film's soft, warm colour and pale greens, a direct flash, a slightly soft lens, and the white border with its deep bottom edge. On an iPhone you get it by shooting RAW with an instant film look loaded, using the flash up close, and saving the photo on an instant-print frame; Chobial has the films and the frame.

A very short history of instant film

Polaroid's first instant camera, the Land Camera Model 95, came out in 1948 using peel-apart film: you pulled the print out and peeled the positive from the negative after a minute. Polacolor, Polaroid's colour instant film, followed in 1963, and in 1972 the SX-70 brought integral film, the self-developing square print everyone pictures today. Polaroid announced the end of its instant film in 2008, and the Impossible Project took over a Polaroid factory in the Netherlands to make film again from 2010.

Meanwhile, Fujifilm launched Instax in 1998 with the Instax Mini, a credit-card-sized print on ISO 800 film. It became a hit all over again in the 2010s. Fujifilm's last peel-apart film, FP-100C, was discontinued in 2016.

What gives instant film its look

• The colour. Instant film has its own palette: warm shadows, soft or slightly milky highlights, pale greens and blues that turn towards cyan. It's never quite neutral, and that's the point.
• Low dynamic range. A print can't hold much from shadow to highlight, so bright skies go white and dark corners go dark. Contrast is gentle in the middle and gives up at the ends.
• The flash. Instant cameras fire their flash a lot, often in daylight too. Faces close to the camera are lit head-on, and the background falls off.
• A simple lens. Soft, especially in the corners, with a little vignetting.
• The frame. Thin sides, a deep bottom edge to hold the print, and whatever someone wrote on it. Half of the instant look is the border.
• The shape. Instax Mini's picture is 46 × 62 mm, upright and close to 3:4; Instax Square and the classic Polaroid are square.

The instant films in Chobial

Both were made by running the stocks' published datasheets through a simulation of exposing and developing the film, then fitting the result as a film you can open and change. See how the films are made. For a faded, older instant feel, try Nostalgia or Vintage too.

How to get the instant look on iPhone

1. Load the film. Tap the badge beside the island, or swipe across the picture until it says Instant or Peel Apart.
2. Pick the shape. For Instax Mini, just hold the iPhone upright: its 4:3 frame is already about the shape of a Mini picture. For Instax Square or a Polaroid, tap Controls, then Frame until it says 1:1. The whole sensor is still captured, so you can change it later in Crop.
3. Use the flash, and get close. Tap flash left of the shutter until it's on. Chobial doesn't fake a flash; it uses the iPhone's real one, which is the only way to get real flash light. An arm's length from your friends is about right.
4. Shoot RAW. Flash photos have bright faces and dark backgrounds, and RAW keeps more of both for the film to work with. See RAW vs HEIF.
5. Soften it if you like. Open the photo, tap Edit, choose the Film tool and add a little Fade for milkier blacks, or Bloom for a glow round highlights.
6. Put it on an instant print. Tap Export, then Frame and choose Instant: thin sides and a deep bottom edge, with your caption and the date written in by hand. Choose Paper for a warm off-white or White for a crisp one. More in frames.

An instant pile on the table

Instant photos are rarely looked at one at a time; they end up scattered on a table or stuck to a fridge. Chobial's collages have an Instant layout that drops 2 to 5 photos as instant prints at angles, as if someone emptied their pocket. In the library, tap Select, pick the photos, tap Collage, and choose the layout; Film puts the same film across all of them so they look like one pack. The Instant layout is a Pro layout; Grid and Pair are free. See collages.

Better than instant, worse than instant

Honest trade: an iPhone won't give you a physical print, and nobody will wave it in the air (please don't wave your phone either). What you get in return is the original: a RAW you can develop again in a different film tomorrow, at a size that can be printed big, and no paying by the shot. Instant and Peel Apart are Pro films, free to shoot and try, with saving taking Chobial Pro; the frame itself is free on any film.

If you love the flash-and-grin look but want it grainier and grubbier, that's the disposable camera look, and for the decades around it, vintage looks by decade.

Fujifilm, Fuji, Instax and FP-100C are trademarks of FUJIFILM Corporation. Polaroid, Polacolor and SX-70 are trademarks of Polaroid. Chobial's films are its own, and Chobial is not affiliated with Fujifilm or Polaroid.

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