2 Ways to Fix Portrait Mode Not Working On iPhone

Key Takeaways

• Portrait mode in the camera app lets you capture photos with a DSLR-like effect
• Portrait Mode is handy to click human subjects and pets

Basic Fixes

• Clean Camera Lens: Dirty camera lens can often lead to bad pictures or, in this case, the portrait effect not kicking in. Hence, it’s a good practice to clean your camera lens.
• Check Your Subjects: Portrait mode works best with a single subject or a couple of faces in the frame. If there are many people in your frame, standing portrait mode may not work as expected.

Method 1: Decrease Aperture Value in the Camera App

Since Portrait mode creates an artificial blur effect in the background, you can control the intensity of the effect using an image editing software. The background blur is controlled via Aperture. This option is used when editing a portrait-mode photo.

Increasing the aperture value reduces the amount of background blur, while decreasing it will make your background appear more blurred. If the aperture value is set to the max, i.e., f16 on your iPhone, the portrait mode photos will appear more or less similar to your standard images. Here’s how you can reduce it to improve background blur intensity.

Step 1: Open the Camera app on your iPhone and navigate to the Portrait option. Tap on the tiny arrow at the top of the screen to reveal additional settings. Select the f button on the bottom-right corner.

Step 2: Use the slider at the bottom to adjust the aperture value to appear between f1.6-f2.8 for the best results. Swiping left increases the value and swiping right decreases.

Update iPhone to the Latest iOS Version

If the above method doesn’t fix your issue, you can try updating your iPhone to the latest iOS version. It’s possible that a particular software version restricts the camera to work properly. Updating your iPhone to the latest software can fix such issues.

Step 1: Go to the Settings app on your iPhone and select General. Tap on Software Update.

Step 2: If a new update is available, it will be listed there. Select Install and wait for the installation to complete.