Photogenic

A camera that tells you what to fix before you press the shutter.

Open it on your phone and point it at yourself. It reads the light, puts a real photo over the preview as a pose to match, and can give a second opinion on the frame if you ask. Free, in the browser, no account.

Open the camera

Works best on a phone. It will ask for camera access, nothing else.

Drawing of the Photogenic camera screen A phone showing a person in the preview, a pale ghost outline to match slightly offset from them, a green light hint, a pose tip, a thirds grid and a round shutter button. mirrorthirds3 sposebest of 5 Lovely. Your face is the brightest thing. Pose: Chin a touch down, then forward. Three-quarter Ghost Flip

Three coaches, one screen

The first two are free and run on the phone. The third is off until you turn it on.

1 · Light and level

It reads the light a few times a second

Too dark, blown out, backlit, flat, hard from one side: one line says what is wrong and what to do. The dot turns green when your face is the brightest thing in frame. A level, a thirds grid with eye-line dots and rotating pose tips sit on top.

2 · Ghost poses

A real photo to line up with

116 photos in six groups: Portrait, Selfie, Standing, Sitting, Candid, Editorial. Tap one and it lies over the preview as a faint ghost, flipped to match the mirror. Add your own under Mine, from the camera roll or a shot you just took.

3 · AI coach, opt-in

A second opinion when you ask for one

Tap Coach and one small frame is scored from 1 to 10 with a line each on light, pose, framing and expression, plus the one thing to fix. Auto looks again every few seconds, Voice reads the fix out loud. The card shows what each look cost.

Also in there: six looks that are saved exactly as previewed, a self-timer, a burst of five that keeps the sharpest frame, and a gallery with share, save and delete.

Photos never leave the phone, except the AI frame

The preview, the light meter, the ghost and every photo you take stay in your browser. The gallery is stored on the device; there is no account and no upload.

The one exception is the AI coach, and only when you tap it: a single 512 pixel frame, about 40 KB, goes to Google's Gemini model through this site's small proxy and comes back as text. The frame is not kept by this site. Never tap Coach and nothing is ever sent.

Your own templates under Mine stay on the device too. The page counts visits and a few button taps without cookies or personal data.

Put it on the home screen

It is a web app: nothing to download from a store. Installed, it opens full screen and the camera shell works offline.

Android (Chrome)

  1. Open the camera in Chrome.
  2. Tap the three-dot menu, top right.
  3. Tap Add to Home screen, then Install.

Once installed, Photogenic appears in the Android share sheet: share a photo from any app and it becomes a ghost template.

iPhone and iPad (Safari)

  1. Open the camera in Safari.
  2. Tap the Share button, the square with the arrow.
  3. Scroll down and tap Add to Home Screen, then Add.

The first launch from the home screen asks for the camera again. iOS has no share-sheet entry for web apps; add your own templates from the camera roll under Mine.

Photo credits

All 116 built-in pose photos come from Unsplash under the Unsplash License, none from Unsplash+. Each one names and links its photographer in the app, in the bar under the ghost. Thank you to everyone who gave those pictures away.

Open the camera

Free. No account. The AI coach is optional.