How to Batch Edit Photos and Videos on iPhone

Apple’s Photos app for iPhone and iPad is perfect for making quick changes or deep edits to your photos and videos. You can even use it to copy edits from one photo or video into an entire batch, reducing your editing work. We’ll show you how.

Copy edits from one photo or video to another

Batch editing on the iPhone works with a copy-and-paste approach. To apply changes to a batch of photos or videos, you must first make changes to one.

Note: The batch edit feature works for edits made with filters, exposure, contrast, saturation, hue, etc. It doesn’t work for crop, straighten, or perspective adjustments.

Open a photo or video and tap Edit, then make some changes. Think about how these changes will affect other images or videos in your stack when you apply them.

When you’re happy with how the photo looks, tap the ellipsis (…) in the top-right corner of the screen and tap “Copy Edits” to copy your changes to the clipboard.

Tap Done to save your changes and return to the library. Tap on a photo to preview it, then use the ellipsis (…) button in the top-right corner, followed by “Paste Edits” to apply your changes.

If you want to apply your edits to more than one photo, you can do so in the main Library view. First, click Select, then tap as many photos as you want to apply your changes to.

Now tap the ellipsis icon (…) in the lower-right corner of the screen and tap “Paste Edits” to make adjustments to the entire batch.

Don’t like the changes you made? You can tap Edit on an individual photo or video, then tap Revert to revert to the original.

You can also do this in batch by tapping “Select” and choosing the photos you want to recover. Then choose “Revert to Original” from the ellipsis (…) menu.

Tip: If you can’t see the option to copy or paste your changes, you need to make sure you’re running iOS 16. Check for iPhone updates under Settings > General > Software update.

Ideal for photos taken under similar conditions

Batch editing can be a real time saver, especially when you want to achieve a similar look from a batch of photos.

For example, you could achieve a striking, high-contrast black and white look by desaturating your shots (using the saturation tool), increasing contrast, increasing black point, and even increasing exposure.

If you’re looking for a less radical look, ideally the shooting conditions should remain the same between photos. For example, batch processing could be useful for simply increasing the brightness of a series of photos taken at the beach on a hazy afternoon.

More editing tips for better photos

Understanding how to edit with the Photos app can greatly improve the results you get from your iPhone’s camera.

You can also use a few simple tips to make your images stand out and increase dynamic range to recover detail from shadows and highlights (especially if you’re shooting in RAW).

TIED TOGETHER: 5 simple photo editing tips to make your photos stand out