AwakingPractical guide

How to match photo colors to a reference on iPhone and iPad

Use a photo whose colors you like as a starting point for your own edit. Awaking borrows color and tone from a reference, lets you adjust their strength, and lets you continue refining your photo in the editor.

Updated November 15, 2026 · Condy

Choose a color direction that suits your photo

A reference guides color and tonal relationships. It does not place the reference photo’s people, buildings, or objects into your image, or guarantee that two different scenes will look identical.

Start with a reference taken in similar light or a related setting. A landscape filled with blue sky may be a poor guide for an indoor portrait. Judge the change on your own photo.

Match, compare, and keep editing

  1. Open color matching and choose the photo you want to edit and a reference.
  2. Review the overall direction. Lower the intensity if the change feels too strong.
  3. Compare the color and tone controls separately. Reduce the tone contribution when you want the reference’s palette while retaining more of the original light and dark relationships.
  4. Compare the original and the result. Check skin, white objects, sky, shadows, and highlights.
  5. Confirm the match, continue with color, composition, or local adjustments in the editor, and review before saving.

See an actual color-matching example

View the full reference, original, and actual color-matching export

What makes a match worth keeping?

Look at the subject first. Does skin still look natural? Do important colors still make sense? Do the shadows retain the details you need? A closer match to the reference is not automatically a better edit.

If you like the direction but one area needs work, continue with local adjustments. If the overall direction never feels right, try another reference before adding more corrections.

Color matching and light matching

Color matching borrows palette and tone. Optional light matching helps with transferable light and dark relationships. It does not promise to reconstruct shadows, move a light source, or turn any daytime scene into night.

Scene content, exposure, and lighting differences affect the result. Compare with the original rather than expecting a pixel-for-pixel copy of the reference.

Are photos uploaded?

Awaking analyzes references, matches colors, and edits on device without an account. Apple may need a network connection to retrieve an iCloud original. When you actively share to another app, you choose the recipient.