Comparison

Chromaform vs Honesmith Optics

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Chromaform

Features
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Chromaform is a professional-grade RAW photo editor for photographers who demand precision, speed, and total creative control — 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 — 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 • Light: Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows + an interactive per-channel Tone Curve • Color: Temperature, Tint, Vibrance, Saturation • Effects: Texture, Clarity, Dehaze, Vignette • Detail: Sharpening, Noise Reduction, and Neural Denoise • Optics: Chromatic Aberration removal Fine-tune any slider with +/āˆ’ 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 • Generative Erase — remove unwanted objects and let the model paint in a clean background • Smart Masking — tap any subject to select it with Segment Anything Model 2.1, then adjust just that region • Recolor Clothing — automatically detect garments and recolor them to any hue • Relight — add up to five virtual lights and drag them across the scene to reshape the lighting • Portrait — face-aware adjustments • Match — transfer the look of any reference photo with neural analysis • Auto Adjust — 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 — 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) — essential for exposure-critical work. NON-DESTRUCTIVE WORKFLOW Your originals are never modified. Edits are stored as lightweight recipes — 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/

About

Honesmith Optics

Features
Read full description

Some photos are better when you make the decisions yourself. Honesmith Optics is an iPhone camera built for RAW and manual photography. Focus and exposure metering can be controlled independently, while manual focus, P/S/M exposure modes, RAW and ProRAW give you direct control when shooting close-up subjects, backlit scenes, or with external lenses. Focus here. Meter there. Tap the preview to set focus. Press and hold to place exposure metering independently. Your subject can stay in focus without forcing you to meter from the same part of the frame. EV compensation gives you a quick final adjustment when you want the image brighter or darker. Shoot RAW. Keep more room to edit. On supported iPhones and camera configurations, Honesmith Optics can capture Bayer RAW or Apple ProRAW and save the original image as DNG, giving you more flexibility for exposure, color, and post-processing. Take more control when you need it. Manual focus, magnified viewing, and Focus Assist make precise focusing easier for macro photography, external lenses, and shallow depth of field. You can control: • ISO • Shutter speed • White balance • Auto and manual focus • Independent exposure metering • EV compensation • RAW / ProRAW • JPEG / PNG • Aspect ratio and filters • Timer • Volume-button shutter • High-resolution photos and 4K video on supported devices No account. No subscription. Your photos stay yours. Honesmith Optics does not require a Honesmith account and does not use Honesmith cloud processing for your photos. Core photo, video, and RAW processing stays on your device. There are no ads or usage analytics. Advanced features are available through one-time in-app purchases. There is no subscription. Whether you are learning manual photography, shooting RAW, working with macro or external lenses, or simply want more control than the built-in camera gives you, Honesmith Optics gives you a more deliberate way to shoot with iPhone. Availability of RAW, ProRAW, high-resolution capture, video formats, and certain camera controls depends on your iPhone, physical lens, iOS version, and current capture configuration.

Screenshots

Chromaform2 screens
Honesmith Optics4 screens

Verdict

The call

Chromaform and Honesmith Optics are too close to call on the numbers: across 6 compared parameters — price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

Scored on Price Ā· Rating Ā· Positive reviews Ā· Number of ratings Ā· Update frequency Ā· Ads Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Monetization Ā· Best chart rank Ā· Devices Ā· Requires iOS

CostPrice Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Ads Ā· Monetization

Both are free to download. Chromaform sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month and Honesmith Optics sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Chromaform ships an update every 9 days, Honesmith Optics weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 18, 2026 and October 15, 2026 respectively.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
Chromaform versus Honesmith Optics: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterChromaformHonesmith Optics
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 9 daysWeekly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
DevicesiPhone, iPad — betteriPhone
Requires iOS16.0 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size35 MB5 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperChromaform, Inc.Shih-Chen Yang

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Chromaform

Subscriptions2
  • Chromaform Pro$2.991 Month
  • Chromaform Pro$14.991 Year
One-time1
  • Chromaform Pro Lifetime$59.99
1 purchases

Honesmith Optics

One-time1
  • Honesmith Optics Pro$11.99

Questions

Is Chromaform free?
Chromaform is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Honesmith Optics free?
Honesmith Optics is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Chromaform or Honesmith Optics have ads?
Neither Chromaform nor Honesmith Optics shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Chromaform or Honesmith Optics?
Chromaform ships an update every 9 days, and Honesmith Optics weekly. Most recently, Chromaform was updated on October 18, 2026 and Honesmith Optics on October 15, 2026.

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