iPhone 18 Pro Film texture and Grain: not on RAW, not on iPhone 17

26 September 2026

The iPhone 18 Pro's new Photographic Styles let you add a Film texture, with halation around highlights, and a Grain switch on top. There are two catches. Both only work on HEIF photos, never on RAW, ProRAW or JPEG. And they only work on photos taken on an iPhone 18 Pro or iPhone Duo, even though Apple's launch press release first said the iPhone 16 and 17 would get them. If you want film texture and grain on RAW, or on an older iPhone, you need to develop the RAW yourself.

What Apple shipped on the iPhone 18 Pro

Apple announced the iPhone 18 Pro on 9 September 2026 with "upgraded Photographic Styles with new texture and grain controls". Photographic Styles have been Apple's in-camera looks since the iPhone 13. On the iPhone 16 they became tone and colour adjustments that you can change later in Photos. The 18 Pro adds a third layer:

• Texture has three options, Soft Skin, Glow and Film, plus Standard for none. Each has an intensity slider.
• Grain is a switch you can add on top of any texture, or use with no texture at all.

PetaPixel's iPhone 18 Pro camera review (16 September) says the Film texture adds a "Cinestill-like level of halation" and reduces "the dynamic range and detail of highlights a bit to mimic the limitations of film". It says Grain "reduces sharpness and, of course, adds grain". You can't set how much grain you get. Apple judges that per image, and the reviewer expects a grain slider next year. The review likes the results, and they are good. Apple has done a real piece of work here, not a filter.

How to turn on Film texture and Grain

These steps follow MacRumors' how-to (18 September):

1. Check Settings › Camera › Formats is on High Efficiency. Styles don't exist in Most Compatible (JPEG) or with RAW on.
2. Open Camera and tap the six-dot button at the bottom right.
3. Choose Styles, swipe to a style, and tap Customize.
4. Set tone and colour on the pad as usual.
5. Tap Texture, pick Film, and drag the slider for intensity.
6. Tap Grain to add grain, then shoot.

MacRumors notes that texture and grain are applied after you take the photo, not in the viewfinder the way tone and colour are.

Catch one: HEIF only, not RAW or ProRAW

PetaPixel is blunt about this: Photographic Styles "are only available if you are capturing HEIF files: they aren't an option if you switch to JPEGs or if you shoot RAW." Styles depend on data Apple stores in the HEIF. Turn on ProRAW and the Styles control goes away, and Film texture and Grain go with it.

That matters most to the people who'd want a film look most. If you already shoot ProRAW for the latitude, Apple's film texture isn't available to you. You have to pick one: Apple's texture on a processed HEIF, or a RAW file with no texture.

Catch two: only on photos taken on an iPhone 18 Pro

Apple's 9 September press release said the new controls would be "available in iOS 27 on iPhone models that support the latest generation of Photographic Styles". That reads as the iPhone 16 and 17 families, iPhone Air and the 18 Pro. Apple later quietly changed the wording. The release now says texture and grain are "available for photos captured on iPhone 18 Pro models and the Ultra Wide, Main, and Center Stage cameras on iPhone Duo". This was reported by MacRumors and Cult of Mac on 22 September, and by The Verge on 23 September. Apple hasn't said why.

In practice, an iPhone 16 or 17 on iOS 27 keeps the tone-and-colour Styles it already had. It can show the texture and grain controls only when you edit a photo that was taken on an 18 Pro. Your own photos, old or new, can't have them.

What that means for a film look

Apple's film texture is a property of the HEIF. You can go back to Photos and change the Style, or switch texture off, and that's useful. But you're always working inside Apple's options, on an image that's already been through Apple's processing:

• No RAW. The texture never touches a file with the latitude to pull back a highlight or open a shadow.
• No control over the grain. It's on or off. You can't choose fine or coarse, subtle or heavy.
• No halation on its own. Halation comes packaged in Film, together with the highlight compression. You can't set how far it spreads or how bright a highlight must be to glow.
• No back catalogue. The photos you took last year on a 16 Pro or 17 Pro never get it, and neither do the ones you take on that phone next week.

None of this is a flaw if you shoot HEIF and want a nice result straight out of the camera. It is a wall if you shoot RAW, or if your phone isn't an 18 Pro.

Film texture and grain on RAW, on any recent iPhone

The alternative is to treat grain and halation as part of how a RAW file is developed. Chobial works this way. It always captures RAW: ProRAW or plain Bayer RAW on Pro iPhones from the 12 Pro onwards, and RAW on other iPhones. The film is live in the viewfinder. Every photo stays a RAW negative that you can develop again with any film, including films you make later. It runs on iOS 26, so it doesn't need an iPhone 18 Pro. It isn't on the App Store yet.

Grain and halation in a Chobial film each have their own controls:

• Grain: pick a Stock (35mm ISO 400, 35mm ISO 100, 16mm ISO 250, 65mm ISO 50), then set Amount (0–100%) and Size (0.5–3.0). Colour films get grain per colour channel and black-and-white films get neutral grain. Grain is strongest in the midtones and stays visible into the highlights, the way a camera's own film simulation renders it. There's more on that in why digital grain looks fake.
• Halation: pick a Stock (Subtle, Standard, No Remjet, No Remjet Heavy), then set Amount, Threshold (how bright a highlight has to be to glow, 50–100%) and Spread. The glow is tinted red-orange and lands on the darker pixels around a highlight, not on the highlight itself. What halation is explains why.

Doing it in Chobial

1. Open Films (hold the film on the camera, or go to Settings › Manage Films) and tap + › New Film. Start From any built-in film. Make your own film walks through every section.
2. In Effects, choose a Halation stock and a Grain stock, then tune Amount, Threshold, Spread and Size on the preview. The preview uses a real photo from your library.
3. Save it, then load it on the camera. The viewfinder shows the grain and glow before you press the shutter.
4. Shoot. The RAW is kept, whether you choose ProRAW or plain RAW.
5. For older photos, open Library › photo › editor › Film and tap your new film. The photo develops again from the RAW. Grain and Fade can also be set per photo.

Lower Develop › Sharpness and Noise Reduction to hand-set values instead of Auto. That does most of what Apple's Grain switch does to sharpness, and it lets real texture through before any grain goes on. Highlight Rolloff softens the top end, which is the other half of what the Film texture does.

When Apple's Styles are the better choice

If you have an iPhone 18 Pro, shoot HEIF, and don't want to think about RAW, Apple's Film texture is good, free and already on your phone. Use it. Other apps cover parts of this too. mood.camera has an 800T-inspired preset with halation and grain, and Halide Mark III (May 2026) added Looks and a RAW Photo Lab. Chobial is for people who want the texture on the RAW, want to set it themselves, and want to change their mind later. RAW vs HEIF for a film look covers that trade-off in more detail.

CineStill is a trademark of CineStill Film. Chobial is not affiliated with CineStill Film or Apple.

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