I tried the viral 'hand in frame' iPhone hack — and it actually made my photos more colorful
The way iPhones take photos means something as silly as sticking your hand in frame can change the colors in your final shot. Here's how it works.
If you've seen the viral trend of photos looking different when a hand is placed in the frame, you're not alone. This effect makes iPhone photos appear more colorful with warmer, more vibrant hues. To test this myself, I took pictures on both the iPhone 18 Pro Max and 17 Pro Max, and noticed a significant improvement in color saturation and vibrancy when my hand was present.
The effect was particularly noticeable in the reds, yellows, and greens of fall foliage. This phenomenon occurs due to iPhones' automatic white balance feature, which can struggle with warmer fall lighting. By placing a light-colored object like a hand in the frame, the camera compensates by adjusting the color temperature, resulting in more vivid fall colors.
However, this trick may not work as well for those with darker skin tones. iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max users can manually adjust white balance for more control, but overall, this clever technique offers a simple way to enhance the color in iPhone fall photos.
Written by urgent.news from Tom's Guide's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
