(Left is actual photo, right is viewfinder). I notice that in the selfie viewfinder that the quality is usually brighter, less sharp, and overall warmer photos. But when I actually snap the photo, it is usually darker with higher sharpness which I always prefer less to the viewfinder. Is there a way to fix this? I feel like I’ve gone through all of the iPhone camera settings without a fix.
Left looks better, but to answer your question, the viewfinder is the photo before Apple does post-processing/computational photography to it.