Spatial Scene: Make your photos 3D in iOS 26

In iOS 26, the awesome new Spatial Scenes feature lets you convert an ordinary 2D photo to a 3D scene that moves in your hand. It doesn’t have to be a recent picture or one taken with a special camera, either. You can try out Apple’s new 3D effect on any decent photo, even if it’s from 20 years ago.

You can play with Spatial Scenes in the Photos app, converting images and seeing how the effect works. But the best part is that you can set one as your iPhone’s Lock Screen wallpaper, and see it every time you unlock your phone. It even works with the excellent Photo Shuffle feature, so you’ll keep getting new ones to gawk at.

Check out the GIFs below that show how Spatial Scenes work, or watch our hands-on demo video.

Make your photos 3D with Spatial Scenes

Spatial Scenes are slightly different from Spatial Photos. A Spatial Photo has a detailed depth effect optimized for the Vision Pro, Apple’s advanced headset. You can take a Spatial Photo on a Vision Pro, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16 or later. However, a Spatial Photo looks like an ordinary photo on an iPhone, iPad and Mac.

A Spatial Scene, on the other hand, lets you enjoy 3D images with a 2D screen. It does this by filling in the perspective of the image, so you can tilt your phone in your hand and see the background tilt, too.

Table of contents: Make your photos 3D with Spatial Scenes

1. Update to iOS 26 on iPhone 12 or later
2. Make a 3D Spatial Scene from your photo
3. Set a Spatial Scene as a Lock Screen wallpaper
4. Get a photo shuffle of Spatial Scenes on your Lock Screen
5. More Photos tips

Update to iOS 26 on iPhone 12 or later

First, you need to update your iPhone to iOS 26. It’s currently available as a software update in Settings > General > Software Update at the bottom of the screen, under “Upgrade to iOS 26.” iOS 26 runs on the iPhone 11, iPhone SE 2 and later (dropping support for the iPhone XS and XR).

Making Spatial Scenes requires an iPhone 12 or later. It doesn’t work on the iPhone 11 or iPhone SE 2.

Make a 3D Spatial Scene from your photo

After you update to iOS 26, open the Photos app. Browse through your photos, and tap on any to open a good candidate.

Tap the Spatial Scene button in the upper right — the tiny hexagon icon with an arrow — under the More (⋯) button. You’ll see a colorful wave sweep over the image, and a few moments later, it’ll become a Spatial Scene.

You can tilt your phone in your hand to see the perspective change. You can wiggle it around freely, up and down, left and right.

The effect looks pretty neat, but not ideal without a true 3D display, like the Vision Pro. It’s pretty great at separating the foreground subject from the background, or applying perspective to a big landscape.

However, portraits sometimes have a diorama effect — where people and animals look like flat cardboard cutouts in a 3D scene. It doesn’t make much of an effort at sculpting the shape and contours of a face, probably to steer clear of the uncanny valley.

Set a Spatial Scene as a Lock Screen wallpaper

Once you’ve made a 3D Spatial Scene out of a photo, you can set it as your Lock Screen wallpaper. Tap the Share button and tap Use as Wallpaper. From the preview, tap the hexagonal Spatial Capture button to toggle it. (If it has a slash through it, the effect is disabled.) Tap Done to customize how it looks on the Home Screen and save your changes.

Unfortunately, there’s a caveat with using a Spatial Scene on the Lock Screen. You can pinch to resize a regular photo below the clock, and your phone will fill in the gap below the clock if there’s not enough space. However, this doesn’t work with a Spatial Scene. So, the subject of the photo has to be pretty far down in the image for it not to interfere with the clock. Images of nature and cityscapes tend to work better than portraits for this reason.

Get a photo shuffle of Spatial Scenes on your Lock Screen

You can do more than manually pick a single photo — you can also get a shuffled mix of Spatial Scenes on your Lock Screen. Swipe down to show the Lock Screen, then tap and hold to customize it.

If you don’t have a Photo Shuffle already, swipe to the end and tap Add New. From the top of the screen, tap Photo Shuffle. Alternatively, you can scroll down and pick a few of the preset categories. You can customize the shuffle, pick a specific album or choose a selection of specific photos.

When you have a set chosen, tap the hexagonal Spatial Capture button to toggle it. (If it has a slash through it, the effect is disabled.) You can tap the screen to preview a few different examples. Choose how often you want it to actually shuffle by tapping the More (⋯) button and selecting either Daily, Hourly, On Lock or On Tap.

More Photos tips

Now that you’ve learned how to make and use Spatial Scenes, check out other features of the Photos app: