Rian Johnson brings Hollywood color science to iPhone photography

The app emerged from Johnson’s frustration with the clinical, hyper-sharpened aesthetic of modern computational photography. While he frequently carries a Leica M6 on film sets, the convenience of a smartphone remains undeniable. Previous attempts to achieve a filmic look involved cumbersome workflows, such as shooting RAW and manually editing images in third-party software, which Johnson found unsustainable. Chromagraph simplifies this by applying Yedlin’s specialized color grading scripts, which were originally engineered to replicate the organic texture of celluloid for cinema.

Beyond capturing new images, the software functions as an editor for existing RAW files, allowing users to adjust tone, saturation, and texture. While the interface is currently in its early stages, the processing engine has already gained significant traction online. Despite his foray into mobile software, Johnson continues to explore traditional methods, including 8x10 wet plate photography in his home darkroom. For the director, the appeal lies in the tactile, deliberate nature of the process, describing his analog experiments as a form of "nerd fishing" that balances his high-tech mobile pursuits.