How to Use Depth Effect on iPhone [2023]

If there's one thing you can single out as different on an iPhone, it's the number of customization options you have when dealing with your iPhone's lock screen. Among the options, there is the depth effects feature, which makes your wallpaper look like it interacts with the lock screen clock widget.

We'll explain the depth effect, when and where you can apply it, and how to use it on your iPhone.

What is the depth effect on iPhone?

When you add a wallpaper with different elements, iPhone splits it into layers of depth. To do this, iOS uses a built-in neural engine to detect depth information in wallpapers to separate the subject you want to appear in focus from other elements of the selected background.

This will create a cool looking effect where the main theme in the wallpaper covers part of the lock screen clock in an overlapping pattern while the rest of the wallpaper appears Behind the clock. Using the depth effect, your wallpaper can interactively wrap around the iOS clock instead of sitting flat underneath it.

When can I apply the depth effect on the lock screen?

The depth effect essentially splits the lock screen background into multiple layers so that part of the wallpaper can dominate the lock screen clock while the rest remains underneath. This effect requires that elements in the wallpaper can be clearly distinguished using depth information via iOS.

NOTE: The depth effect cannot be enabled on the lock screen with widgets. To enable the depth effect on such lock screens, you need to delete the widgets on them first for the depth effect to take effect.

iOS The depth effect can only be activated when the subject is clearly visible from the rest of the lock screen background. Apply this background in such a way that the top of the subject is placed on and around the lower half of the lock screen clock.

The depth effect will not apply when the subject moves too far above the clock, as the subject may obstruct viewing the clock on the lock screen. The same goes for when you add the widget to the lock screen, as the depth effect will be disabled automatically.

What do you need to use depth effect on iPhone?

For the depth effect to work properly, the most important thing is that your iPhone is running on iOS 16, iOS 17 or later. You cannot use the depth effect on iOS 15 or any other older version of iOS; therefore, you need to ensure that your device is updated by going to the settings of "General>Software Update Go to the latest version>.

To take full advantage of the Depth Effects feature, your iPhone must be powered by Apple's A12 Bionic chipset or later. This means you must have an iPhone XR, iPhone XS, or newer to enable the depth effect on any lock screen background. Although

iPhone X and iPhone 8

do not use this chipset, you can use depth effects on these devices to a limited extent. On these devices, the depth effect only works with certain default wallpapers provided by Apple. For all other compatible phones, you can make the depth effect work as long as iOS can detect the depth information from the background and split it into different depth layers.

How to Use Depth Effect on iPhone Lock Screen

You can follow the instructions below to turn on the depth effect on your current wallpaper or a new background in your camera roll. To enable the depth effect, use

Face ID to unlock your phone

but don't go to the Home screen. To do this, simply press the

Side Button, show your face to the iPhone, and unlock the lock screen. Now, long press to unlock anywhere on the lock screen.

Method #1: Use a new lock screen background

When the lock screen enters edit mode, click the

button in the lower right corner

to create another lock screen with a new background. This way you can keep your current lock screen background and create a new one separately.

When you click the button, you will reach the Add New Wallpaper screen. You can apply a wallpaper from existing options or choose an image from your iPhone's camera roll to use as a background. In this case, we apply the latter's new background by selecting "Photo

" at the top.

On the next screen, you will see all the pictures in your iPhone gallery. From here, select the background you want to add as your new lock screen wallpaper.

The selected background will now be loaded on the lock screen editing screen. Since the subject in the picture (the beige building) is far away from the clock, the depth effect will be disabled.

To be able to use the depth effect, pinch outward on the screen to enlarge the background so that the subject expands close to the lock screen clock.

#The depth effect should be automatically enabled when iOS detects that certain elements of the subject are closer to the clock.

If it is not enabled individually, click the 3-dot icon in the lower right corner.

From the overflow menu, select "Depth Effect" until a tick mark appears to its left.

You will now see that the main body (the building) now covers part of the clock to get the desired depth effect.

You can zoom in/out the background further (by drag with two fingers) to reposition the subject relative to the clock as needed. Once you've finished editing your lock screen, tap Add in the upper right corner to save your changes.

#iOS will now preview the new lock screen and home screen in the boxes at the bottom. If you're happy with both looks, click Set as wallpaper pair.

#The new lock screen with depth effect will now be previewed on the custom screen. To activate it, tap on this new lock screen.

#Now you will see the new lock screen with Depth Effect enabled on your iPhone.

Method #2: On an existing lock screen wallpaper

When the lock screen enters edit mode, tap Customize# at the bottom ## to enable depth effect on existing lock screen wallpaper.

On the next screen, tap

Lock ScreenPreview on the left.

You will now be in the Customize screen and all the elements at the top of the lock screen will appear in boxes. Before enabling the depth effects feature, make sure to delete any existing widgets from this screen. Depth effects cannot be applied to lock screens that have widgets added to them.

For the wallpaper I set, iOS cannot clearly detect the subject to overlay it on the clock.

The depth effect remains disabled because the subject (the tower) appears relatively close to other elements of the background.

To enable iOS to detect the subject, you can

pinch outward on the screen to zoom in on the background, just like you did in the previous section so that the body expands closer to the lock screen clock.

If the depth effect is not enabled automatically, you can manually turn it on by clicking the

3 dot icon in the lower right corner.

In the overflow menu that appears, select "Depth Effect" until tick marks appear to its left.

#Now you will see the main body (tower) appear on top of the lock screen clock.

You can zoom in/out the background further (by drag with two fingers) to reposition the subject relative to the clock as needed. Once you've finished editing your lock screen, tap Done in the upper right corner to save your changes.

#The new lock screen with depth effect will now be previewed on the custom screen. To activate it, tap New Lock Screen.

#Now, you will see that the lock screen has Depth Effect enabled on your iPhone.

Tips for using the depth effect on iPhone

After you enable the depth effect on your wallpaper, you can customize the look of your lock screen by checking out these tips For the way you want.

Reposition how the subject appears on the lock screen

Even after the lock screen is applied, you can change its appearance so that the focused subject is more clearly visible or positioned relative to the lock screen View different positions of the clock. To do this, you need to enter the lock screen's edit mode by unlocking your iPhone, long-pressing on the lock screen, and then tapping Customize at the bottom.

While in edit mode, you should see a "Pinch to crop" tab at the bottom indicating that the wallpaper can be enlarged and cropped for a more customized look.

#If the subject is too small, you can use any two fingers to pinch outward on the screen to enlarge the picture. When you do this, you'll need to zoom into the subject so you know what's showing at the top of the lock screen. Let's say you want the Buddha statue in the screenshot below to cover a larger area on your lock screen; to do this, you'll need to pinch outward with your fingers to enlarge the image so that the statue takes center stage.

Likewise, you can drag the background with two fingers to reposition the wallpaper to the desired view. When you're in the process of repositioning the main body, you need to position it in such a way that the main part of it reaches somewhere in the middle of the clock height. Take a look at the screenshot below to see how we repositioned the previous Buddha statue to take up most of the screen.

When you're happy with the look, click Done or Add in the upper right corner to save your changes.

The modified background will now be applied to your lock screen.

Remove widget to activate depth effect

As we explained above, depth effect does not work with lock screen widgets on iPhone. If you added widgets to the lock screen, you must manually remove them so that the themes in the wallpaper can appear on top of the lock screen clock.

To remove a lock screen widget, long press on an unlocked lock screen and tap Customize at the bottom.

On the next screen, click on the lock screen preview on the left since you are editing the lock screen here.

#When the lock screen enters edit mode, tap the widget box below the clock.

This should highlight the widgets you've added to your lock screen. Since any of these widgets will prevent the depth effect from working on your iPhone, click the minus (-) icon in the upper left corner of each widget to remove them. You may need to repeat this step if you have multiple widgets on your lock screen.

After you delete each widget from here, click

Done

in the upper right corner to save your changes.

#You will now be returned to the lock screen and if the background is set correctly, the depth effect should activate on its own.

Choose a clock style that fits your background

While this setting has nothing to do with the depth effect, you can customize the appearance of the clock to fit the depth effect wallpaper on your iPhone. As mentioned above, you can change the clock style and color by first entering the lock screen's edit mode. Once in edit mode, tap the

Clock Widget

in the upper half of the screen.

In the Fonts & Colors menu that appears, select

Clock Style

from the top row, adjust the clock size from the middle slider, and then adjust the clock size from the bottom row BehaviorClockApply the desired color that fits the lock screen.

After you have made the necessary changes, click

Done

in the upper right corner to save the appearance.

#You can check out our in-depth guide on changing the clock font on iPhone in the post linked below.

Turn off depth effect

Depth effect is an optional feature when setting a wallpaper for the lock screen. If you don't want the depth effect on your background, you can disable it for the current lock screen. To do this, enter the edit mode of your lock screen as described above.

Method 1: For wallpapers applied from Photos

If your iPhone lock screen was created from an image you added from your Photos library, you can edit it by tapping the lower right corner of the lock screen in edit mode. The

3-click icon

to disable the depth effect on it.

In the overflow menu that appears, click

Depth Effect

to remove the tick marks to its left.

This should bring the clock to the front of the current lock screen wallpaper. To save your changes, click

Done

in the upper right corner.

The depth effect should now be disabled on the lock screen.

Method 2: For existing iOS wallpaper

If the wallpaper you want to turn off "Depth Effect" is already available on your iPhone and is not from Photos app, you can use the instructions above to enter edit mode on your lock screen, thereby disabling the depth effect on it. In edit mode, click the

Depth Effect

button (the one indicated by the two plates stacked one on top of the other).

From the overflow menu that appears, select "

Depth Effect Off

".

This should bring the clock to the front of the current lock screen wallpaper. To save your changes, click

Done

in the upper right corner.

The depth effect should now be disabled on the lock screen.

Which iPhones support depth effects?

To detect depth information from pictures, Depth Effect uses the iPhone’s neural engine to separate the subject from the image so that it appears on top of the clock. This requires your iPhone to be powered by Apple's A12 Bionic chipset or higher. Therefore, you can only use the full potential of the depth effect on the following devices:

• iPhone XR, iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max
• iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone 11 Pro Max
• iPhone SE 2nd generation (2020) and 3rd generation (3 years)
• iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 12 Pro Max
• iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 13 Pro Max
• iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 14 Pro Max

If you own an iPhone X or iPhone 8, the depth effect will work on a limited basis. This is because the iPhone X and iPhone 8 are powered by Apple's A11 Bionic chip, which may not have the resources to detect depth information from the background. However, you can still use the depth effect on the default wallpaper provided to you by Apple itself. You can enable the depth effect on iPhone X and iPhone 8 using 3 wallpapers in Collections and 2 wallpapers in Weather & Astronomy.

If you want to use depth effect on iPhone X and iPhone 8, you can check out the post in the link below.

Can you use depth effects with lock screen widgets?

Haha When you add one or more widgets to the lock screen of your iPhone, the depth effect on the lock screen will not be enabled. When there are widgets on the iPhone lock screen, the wallpaper and its theme will move to the background while the clock and widgets appear above them, instantly disabling the depth effect.

Which wallpapers can you use to get a depth effect on your lock screen?

If you have an iPhone X or iPhone 8, you can use any of the default wallpapers below to get the depth effect.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

# Since iPhone X and iPhone 8 are powered by the A11 Bionic chipset , so they don't support depth effects on images in the gallery. If you have an iPhone XR/XS or later, the depth effect should apply to any image you use as your lock screen wallpaper. We’ve compiled a list of really cool backgrounds that you can use to get the depth effect you want on your iPhone, which you can access by checking out the post linked below.

Depth effect not working on iPhone? What You Should Do

There are many reasons why you may not be able to use the depth effect on your iPhone’s lock screen.

You may be using an unsupported iPhone.
• The wallpaper you selected does not support depth effect.
• Depth effects were previously disabled on the lock screen.
• Widgets are present on the lock screen.
• iOS The subject is not detected for the depth effect to work properly.

If you wish to resolve this issue, you can check out the fix we explain in depth in the post linked below.

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