Melody Chu and Jing Liu, both former TikTok employees, have launched an iOS camera app called 'Superpose.' Chu has a product background at companies like Meta, Nextdoor, Roblox, TikTok, and Slack, while Liu was a founding engineer at a 3D face scanning startup before working on image and video models at TikTok.

The idea actually came from Chu's own struggle with her husband's poor photography skills. She decided to start the company to fix this using computer vision and generative AI. Unlike other apps that synthesize fake backgrounds or fantasy locations, this startup wants to focus on the heart of memory-keeping: capturing real-life moments and experiences.

Since its July launch, Superpose has seen over 22,000 downloads and users have generated more than 190,000 poses. They've also raised $2.2 million from Khosla Ventures, Meitu (the Chinese smartphone and selfie app company), and OVTR VC.

The app analyzes your selfies or photos of friends to generate four potential AI poses. You can save these poses or use the 'match-pose' feature to position yourself exactly within the suggested frame.

Some of the generated poses can look a bit exaggerated or even 'uncanny' at times. The company is currently working on improving the generation style, personalization, and direct coaching within the viewfinder.

You get five free generations every day, and if you need more, you can buy a 5-pack for $2.99 or a 20-pack for $9.99.

Chu mentioned that while other companies are entering the AI photography space, Superpose will focus on being the best camera for taking portraits guided by AI.

It's a growing trend to use AI image tech for photography coaching. For example, Google launched 'Camera Coach' for Pixel phones last year to help with composition, and Adobe released a feature in an experimental app in July that critiques photos and suggests changes.