Film look on iPhone
Perfect was never the point.
Have you noticed that iPhone photos often appear too perfect, lacking character or emotion? While technical accuracy matters to a machine, it rarely captures the feeling of a real moment.
This is where Citus Camera comes in. Choose a look, frame the shot, add some grain, and press the shutter. That's it. Nothing to fix later. The warmth, grain, and the way the light fell are all there the moment you took it.
The Looks
A film look is the unique character a photo gets from being shot on film. Each type of film captures color, light, and detail differently, creating its own grain, contrast, and mood. This is why the same scene can feel warm, nostalgic, soft, or dramatic depending on the film used.
Citus Looks bring that character to your photos. Some are scanned from real film, so what you see is the film itself: its color, its grain, its contrast. Others are handcrafted from scratch to create unique looks with a mood of their own.
The Recipe
Have you ever taken a photo you loved, then tried to recreate it a week later but couldn’t get it right? The look, the grain, the warmth, all set by instinct in the moment with nothing written down. The photo remains, but how you made it slips away.
This is where the recipe comes in. Citus saves every setting inside the photo: the look, the grain, the adjustments, exactly as they were when you pressed the shutter. Open the photo later and the whole setup returns with one tap. Share it, and anyone with Citus can shoot with your recipe too.
Before and after
Same shutter press.
Citus saves the Apple ProRAW file beside every photograph. On the left is that file rendered flat, exactly what the sensor recorded, with nothing done to it. On the right is the Citus frame as it landed in the library, the look applied live in the viewfinder, straight out of camera.
Drag the line. The frame, the light and the moment are the same; only the film is different.
Photographs
Every frame straight out of the camera.
FAQ
What is Citus Camera?
An iPhone camera app that puts film looks in the viewfinder, live, before you press the shutter. The photograph is finished at capture, grain and all, and its recipe is written inside the file.
Is it free? Is there a subscription?
Free to download. Citus Pro and the three look packs are one-time purchases. No subscription.
Which iPhones does it support?
iPhones on iOS 16.6 or later; up to 48 MP and ProRAW on supported models.
How are the looks made?
Six are measured from real film stock: real rolls shot, scanned and characterised, so the viewfinder shows a film's behaviour. The other 22 are handcrafted with the same method.
What is a film recipe, and can I share it?
The look, the grain and every setting, written inside the photograph's file and readable by any photo tool. Lift a recipe from any frame, save it, name it, share it.
Where are my photos saved?
In your Photos library, in albums named Citus Camera and Citus RAW, the moment you press the shutter.
Does it upload my photos?
No. Everything runs on the phone. No image leaves it, there is no account and there is no tracking.
Is Citus a vintage camera app?
No. The looks come from real film, measured and built, not styled to look old.
How is it different from Halide, VSCO or Dazz?
Halide is a superb manual camera with natural processing; VSCO and Dazz are editors and effect cameras with large communities. Citus does one thing: film looks measured from real stock, live in the viewfinder, with the recipe inside every file.