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A 2016 phone photo of you

Pick a photo and 2016. Erafy makes a new picture in the look of the year phones learned to hold a bright sky, and the first of them learned to fake a blurred background.

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

2016 phone photo of a woman at a café table with a latte

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 2016

Four in five Americans had a smartphone by 2016, and most photos came off the 12-megapixel phones of 2014 and 2015. New since 2013 was exposure merging on by default: the sky kept its colour and the shadows opened. The rest stayed: punchy saturation, sharpening halos, smeared noise reduction, everything in focus, and shaky, noisy frames indoors without stabilisation.

In late October 2016 one phone with two lenses added a portrait mode: a 56 mm telephoto flattered the face, and a depth map from the pair painted a soft blur behind it. Shipped as a beta, it cut into hair, glasses and the gap between an arm and a body. No other 2016 look blurred the background.

The finish was no longer square: the photo-sharing app had allowed upright frames since 2015, and its filter of the year was cool and bright, with a lightened centre under a faint blue cast. A film-look editing app faded blacks to grey, and a disappearing-message app sent vertical snaps with cartoon dog ears on the face.

Erafy chooses the phone and the finish at random; with Situation on, the setting might be a weekend coffee run, a garden wedding or a rooftop party. The square-filter year before is 2013; the night-mode year after is 2019.

More from 2016

  • A 2016 group selfie of friends with a selfie stick, a city skyline behind
    Group selfie
  • A 2016 house-party photo of a couple with red cups and string lights
    Couple · House party
  • A 2016 phone photo of a woman in linen trousers holding a coffee against a painted pink and blue wall
    Street style
  • A 2016 phone selfie of five friends on a rooftop at sunset, a city skyline behind them
    Rooftop selfie
  • Before and after: a tortoise with lettuce, and a 2016 street photo of a tortoise-headed man in a bomber jacket
    Tortoise, 2016

  • 2016 · two seconds, silent

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
  • 2013 filtered phone selfie of a woman by a stone arch in a city park
    2013Retro filter apps
  • 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

What is the blurred background in a 2016 phone photo?

The first phone portrait mode, which appeared on a single two-lens phone in late October 2016. The phone measured depth from its two cameras and blurred whatever it judged to be behind the person, a painted softness rather than a real lens falloff. Its edge mistakes around hair and glasses are part of the 2016 look.

Could a 2016 phone take pictures at night?

Better than in 2013, not well. Wider lenses, bigger pixels and stabilisation on some phones gave steadier, brighter frames indoors, but true darkness still meant noise, smeared detail and streetlamps blooming into blobs. Night modes that stack several seconds of frames did not arrive until 2018 and 2019.

What would I look like in 2016?

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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