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You in a 2013 phone photo

Pick a photo and 2013, the year a majority of American adults first owned a smartphone and the selfie got its name. Erafy makes a new picture in that year's phone look.

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AI photo app · Free to download · iPhone · 18+

2013 filtered phone selfie of a woman by a stone arch in a city park

Nobody in the examples is a real person — the before photos are invented faces. These are our best results, not average ones. Sometimes AI can't handle it and modifies your face. All we can offer is a try.

How photos looked in 2013

By 2013 the phone was the camera. The year's flagship had an 8-megapixel sensor behind a fixed 29 mm lens, a two-tone flash mixing white and amber, and no stabilisation. The processing was heavier: hard edge sharpening, punchy colour, a white sky and blocked shadows in sun, and noise reduction that smeared fine detail into a watercolour texture. Everything stayed sharp front to back.

Most pictures shared that year came off the 2011 and 2012 phones, a half-step rougher, with a single white flash: at a dim party the nearest face went hot with red-eye while the room fell to near-black and lamps bloomed into glowing blobs.

The photo-sharing app still forced a square, 640 pixels a side, and the year's favourite filter laid a warm sepia wash and a soft round vignette over the phone file; the runner-up cross-processed it golden with burnt corners. A quieter editing app offered muted film tones with blacks lifted to grey.

Erafy picks a phone and a finish at random, so your picture may arrive square and sepia, or plain and flash-lit. With Situation on, the scene could be a weekend brunch, a brewery taproom or a rooftop party. The rougher year before is 2010; the cleaner year after is 2016.

More from 2013

  • A 2013 holiday photo of a couple at sunset above blue-domed rooftops
    Couple · Santorini
  • A 2013 phone selfie of a couple at a café table with coffee and cake, a tram and old buildings behind them
    Café selfie
  • A 2013 phone photo of a woman in a denim shirt at a brunch table with avocado toast and a mimosa
    Brunch

Other years

  • Sepia 1900 portrait of a woman in a high-collared blouse on a city street with horse carriages
    1900Early roll film, black and white
  • 1910 early colour photograph of a woman in a lace blouse seated at a garden table
    1910Glass plates, film packs and early colour plates
  • Black-and-white 1920s street portrait of a woman in a pale dress and a long pearl necklace
    1920Orthochromatic black and white
  • Sepia 1930s street photo of a woman in a floral dress holding a handbag
    1930Roll-film snapshots
  • Black-and-white 1940s street portrait of a woman in a tailored jacket
    1940Wartime black and white
  • Black-and-white 1950s street portrait of a woman in a cardigan and plaid skirt
    1950Black and white, and the first colour
  • Black-and-white 1960s street photo of a woman in a gingham sundress beside parked cars
    1960Colour slides and black and white
  • Faded 1970s colour photo of a woman in a floral blouse on a sunny street
    1970Warm, faded colour film
  • 1980s colour snapshot of a woman in a striped sweater in a bedroom with posters and a TV
    198035 mm colour, pocket cameras, flash
  • 1990s colour film photo of a woman in a green sweater and jeans on a campus street
    1990Drugstore colour film and disposables
  • 2000 colour snapshot with a date stamp: a woman in a lilac T-shirt on a campus walkway
    2000Date stamps and the first digital cameras
  • 2010 phone photo with a heavy vignette: a woman sitting by a city waterfront
    2010Early phone cameras
  • 2016 phone photo of a woman at a café table with a latte
    2016Phone portrait mode
  • 2019 phone photo of a woman on a beach at sunset
    2019Night mode and ultrawide
  • 2022 phone photo of a woman at a café with a latte
    2022The modern phone camera
  • 2025 phone photo of a woman at a café table with latte art
    2025Today's phones

Questions

Why is the sky white in a 2013 phone photo?

A phone sensor of that size could not hold a bright sky and a face at once, and the exposure-merging mode that would have helped was new, slow, and switched off on most phones. So the sky went white and the shadows went black, and the filter apps added a vignette on top.

Did 2013 phones blur the background?

No. The small sensor kept everything in focus unless the subject was very close. Blurred backgrounds came later, with the two-lens portrait modes of 2016. Only a dedicated camera with a large sensor blurred a background in 2013, and such pictures were rarely the shared snapshot.

What would I look like in 2013?

Erafy makes a new picture from your photo in the style of the year you pick, so how much it resembles you varies from one go to the next. It varies most in the black-and-white years and in the crafts before 1900, where faces are drawn in the craft's style. We make no promise about how any result will look.

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