Magic Lighting vs Chromaform
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ with what reviewers say about each.
Magic Lighting
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โ Beautifully decorate your photos with the lighting effects of "Spotlight" of various shapes and colors. โ Mixed decoration with multiple lights โ More than 100 types of spotlight shapes are available. [Features of the app] โ Practical: Focus effect with various lighting โ Amusement: Confirm lighting effects in real time โ High resolution: Save the edited photo at the original resolution โ Unique: Only this app can create elaborate lighting decorations [Source] - Camera shooting: photo - Camera Roll: Photos - Image paste: Copy and paste web images - File sharing: Can be sent from AirDrop, SNS, other apps [Real-time editing tool] - Lighting shape: more than 100 types - Lighting switch ON/OFF - Rotation angle: Slider control adjustment (0 to 360 degrees) - Lighting intensity: Slider control adjustment - Background Darkness: Slider control adjustment - RGB Mixing Ratio: Slider control adjustment - Color settings: Slider control adjustment (RGB values) [Touch operation] - Swipe: Move lighting - Pinch in/Pinch out: change lighting size [Output] - Save to Camera Roll: Photo - Photo sharing: AirDrop, LINE, Facebook, Dropbox, Instagram,...
Chromaform
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Chromaform is a professional-grade RAW photo editor for photographers who demand precision, speed, and total creative control โ with a full suite of on-device AI tools that never send your photos to the cloud. REAL-TIME RAW EDITING Open DNG, CR3, NEF, ARW, and other major camera RAW formats with true RAW processing. Exposure and recovery work directly from sensor data โ no clipping, no compromise. Every adjustment renders live on the GPU through a Vulkan pipeline (vkdt + MoltenVK) and Metal-accelerated Core Image. COMPLETE ADJUSTMENT TOOLKIT โข Light: Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows + an interactive per-channel Tone Curve โข Color: Temperature, Tint, Vibrance, Saturation โข Effects: Texture, Clarity, Dehaze, Vignette โข Detail: Sharpening, Noise Reduction, and Neural Denoise โข Optics: Chromatic Aberration removal Fine-tune any slider with +/โ buttons and reset any section with one tap. COLOR GRADING Cinema-style color wheels for shadows, midtones, and highlights. Grade the whole frame, or apply grades selectively to the foreground, background, or a gradient region. ON-DEVICE AI TOOLKIT โข Generative Erase โ remove unwanted objects and let the model paint in a clean background โข Smart Masking โ tap any subject to select it with Segment Anything Model 2.1, then adjust just that region โข Recolor Clothing โ automatically detect garments and recolor them to any hue โข Relight โ add up to five virtual lights and drag them across the scene to reshape the lighting โข Portrait โ face-aware adjustments โข Match โ transfer the look of any reference photo with neural analysis โข Auto Adjust โ one tap analyzes the scene with Apple's Vision framework (classification, face detection, saliency) for optimal exposure, white balance, and color MASKING & GRADIENTS Combine subject masks with linear, radial, and rectangular gradient masks. Paint masks in or out by hand, feather the edges, and apply any adjustment or color grade to the masked area only. PRESETS & LUTS Nine built-in looks: Natural, Vivid, Film Warm, Film Cool, Cinematic, B&W Classic, B&W High Contrast, Vintage Fade, and Matte. Import your own .cube 3D LUTs for custom film emulations. CREATIVE EFFECTS Add atmosphere with the Water tool โ rain drops and streaks. PIPELINE CONTROL See every stage of the processing pipeline and toggle any phase on or off to understand exactly how your edit is built. CLIPPING VISUALIZATION Toggle the Clip overlay to see blown highlights (red) and crushed shadows (blue) โ essential for exposure-critical work. NON-DESTRUCTIVE WORKFLOW Your originals are never modified. Edits are stored as lightweight recipes โ reopen any image with your edits intact, or reset to original at any time. PROJECT-BASED ORGANIZATION Group photos into projects, rate with stars, filter by rating, and copy, paste, or batch-apply edit recipes across an entire shoot. Review full-screen in the loupe with pinch-to-zoom. PRIVATE BY DESIGN The entire pipeline runs on-device with MoltenVK and Metal. Your photos never leave your device. Privacy Policy: https://chromaform.art/privacy Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Chromaform at Free against Magic Lighting's $0.99. Chromaform also leads on update cadence (every 9 days vs every 20 months). Magic Lighting's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 3) and iOS requirement (10.0 vs 16.0). On ads and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS
Chromaform is free to download; Magic Lighting costs $0.99 up front. Chromaform sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Magic Lighting asks for nothing beyond the download.
Magic Lighting ships an update every 20 months, Chromaform every 9 days. The most recent releases landed on September 21, 2026 and September 14, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Magic Lighting | Chromaform |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0.99 | Free โ better |
| Update frequency | Every 20 months | Every 9 days โ better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No โ better | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod โ better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 10.0 โ better | 16.0 |
| Further details โ not scored | ||
| Size | 14 MB | 35 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Masanori Katsuta | Chromaform, Inc. |
In-app purchases
Magic Lighting
No in-app purchases
Chromaform
- Chromaform Pro$2.991 Month
- Chromaform Pro$14.991 Year
- Chromaform Pro Lifetime$59.99
Questions
Is Magic Lighting free?
Is Chromaform free?
Do Magic Lighting or Chromaform have ads?
Which is updated more often, Magic Lighting or Chromaform?
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