Yeah, agreed. I screen captured the unprocessed image from the webpage (which has been jpeg'd and therefore lost lots of the shadow detail). I loaded it into a paint package and did a simple (and computationally cheap) histogram adjustment. IMO, the results were at least as good as theirs. And these are the results they cherry picked. Not impressive.

I guess most people won't load the image into a paint package to fix it, so their aim is just to automatically do a job nearly as good as a trivial change a human would make. Still, I was hoping for more.

I don't think the Pixel Visual Core is supposed to do anything new or revolutionary -- the primary purpose is to do these old things FASTER for the user.

But a simple histogram stretch can be done with very little processing power by modern standards. 50 ms on one core of the application processor would be enough.

I think they just chose bad examples. The results from this Google Research blog post are much much more impressive:

https://research.googleblog.com/2017/04/experimental-nightti...

I wish my smartphone could do _that_ automatically.

You end up with a lot more noise with simple histogram adjustment from a single image, plus the dynamic compression to a final 8bit image won't look as good for many use cases.

Exposure fusion from multiple images has much higher usable dynamic range and lower noise.

Thanks for that. That was amazing.

Faster and supposedly uses much less power.

> Using Pixel Visual Core, HDR+ can run 5x faster and at less than one-tenth the energy than running on the application processor (AP).

Not just faster but more energy efficient I presume. That's especially important when taking long videos.

BUT it is HDR aka they take multiple of photos and use the under exposed for the sky and the more exposed for the faces. So they are doing MUCH more then a histogram.

Sure, but why even do that if a histogram stretch achieves what is effectively the same end result?

Because in the long run HDR will be better for people who are horrible picture takers.

In your one example sure. But isn't that sort of short sighted?

No, I noticed it right away and I'm no photography expert. I suppose it's easy to control that in software, though, preferably before they actually enable the feature in Android 8.1.

I also don't know if Google actually consults with real photography experts when creating these machine learning techniques. Apple made a big deal out of doing that at the last event to create "beautiful photos". It's not enough to just "mathematically improve" something. It should look very pleasing to the human eye, too.

Perhaps if Google did that, too, it would have avoid issues such as this one, or the somewhat unrealistic look of its portrait mode blur in photos. It's hard to explain, but to me the Pixel 2 portrait shots look like the person doesn't "belong" in the environment. Like they have a linear-blur wallpaper behind them and they photograph themselves in front of it. Or almost like they are photoshopped into the image. I wouldn't say it's that bad. And a majority of people probably won't notice it immediately, but I still think it needs to be improved (perhaps, I don't know, by actually using a dual-camera setup like Apple and Samsung?).

https://www.gsmarena.com/google_pixel_2_xl-review-1670p4.php...

I feel the same way in that their portrait mode just doesn't look right compared to what you would get from a real shallow depth of field and a fast lens.

But I think the (depressing) truth of it is that I notice it because I've had fast lenses and spent a lot of time taking photos, so I know what natural looking bokeh looks like. And bokeh is also just an artifact of a lens and aperture combo, so who is to say that extreme blur with a sharp line as they are doing isn't just going to be the new standard?

I suspect the next generation will come to prefer this look (if it continues) and find the "natural" effect with real glass as weird.

>Apple made a big deal out of doing that at the last event to create "beautiful photos". It's not enough to just "mathematically improve" something.

There are many non-obvious issues with this as well. You're most likely thinking of, for example, an non-centered subject can create an interesting composition and algorithmically centering the subject would not create better looking photos.

However, in film's history, we've seen older technology briefly preferred for no other reason than momentum. An example off the top of my head is higher frame rate video does not have the "movie feel" that 24 fps film does. That doesn't mean 24 fps is ideal, its simply familiar.

As landscapes, they may well be less interesting. As communicative portraits, they're (IMO) more successful. The first one is probably the best example. Having a clearer and brighter picture of (for example) your partner and daughter would likely be preferable. If it was a candid and unposed shot, it might look weird and unnatural though. This is why the fourth example is probably the least successful, that hazy summer glow in the "before" picture is somewhat desirable.

To my eyes, the shadow boost is a little too much. I'd ideally like a slider to customise exactly how much brightness you're adding. Personally, I'd probably turn most of these down a touch.

Google clearly has fantastic technology driving this image processing, but I think they need a little more work on their taste.

IMO from a photography point of view the first is the worst displaying very clear haloing around the subjects, one of the clear signs of "not good" HDR. I guess it depends what exactly you're optimising for but the results aren't pleasing to my eye.

I would also like more controls. You can have that shooting RAW and editing with Snapseed, but it's a bit more involved and the usable dynamic range of a single mobile raw image is below exposure fusion from HDR+.

The point is they recovered the shadow detail of people’s faces which would otherwise be lost.

Those are challenging circumstances for taking photos (backlit). The point here is to recover shadow detail.

Them looking bland is a function of them being made in challenging circumstances.

Their results are quite bad compared to a passably competent Photoshop user willing to spend 2 minutes per picture.

But if you need the computer to do all the color adjustment for you, so you can post your snapshot on facebook or print it at the local drug store with no manual intervention, this might be a good enough result.

I think you are missing the point with improvements of this nature. Take for example: you have kids. You're at an event with said kids. While I still own a mirror-less micro 4/3rds, I often time don't have it with me. It's easy to snap hundreds of photos in random life events with a good smart phone camera. I personally have almost 2TB of family photo and video and I've got a long way to go. Can you imagine me spending 2 minutes, per picture, on even a fraction of that? Not only have you discounted the "sharability" aspect, the "instant gratification" aspect, and ultimately the tradeoff of results over time. When phones started to wield cameras I intentionally avoided them because of less-than-potato level quality. Now a phone I'm buying must have a fast, quality shooter. I own both Google and Apple products and the Pixel has pushed the bar up significantly in my personal opinion. Do I occasionally edit (mostly in-phone)? Sure. Simple grading and some vignetting goes a long way. Is it professional? No. But the point is I'm not shooting the pictures to win anyone else over. It's an investment in preservation. If I have all of that overhead, as you suggest, it will never get done. I have more useful things to spend time on than editing a few dozen photos on my computer, after I transfer them, then upload them SmugMug and then send out an email or note about it. Instead I can send a group message on Signal and everyone gets the gist in a fraction of the time.

This thread seems to be filled with amateur professionals thinking that their iPhone or Pixel will magically do something optically it can't (yet?). It's good enough, and in some cases a spectacular ROI (both Apple/Google/Samsung/LG/etc) for the price. The photography giants wouldn't sell or develop new products if they felt a lot of pressure in this space. You shouldn't have an expectation that your $1000 phone competes with a few thousand in camera, glass and filters in the right hands. It won't.

Edit: words

> This thread seems to be filled with amateur professionals thinking that their iPhone or Pixel will magically do something optically it can't (yet?).

This is key. I own some decent camera gear and I'm amazed at what is coming out of all of the top end phones. Of course I can critique and find faults, but the pictures that non-photographers can take with their phones in a matter of seconds are down right amazing.

I actually wonder if the gear heads feel their domain threatened? I'm waiting for the day when I don't have to lug around my camera and multiple pounds of lenses in order to get all the shots I want :)

> but the pictures that non-photographers can take with their phones in a matter of seconds are down right amazing.

But that simply highlights that simply owning good gear doesn't mean you can shoot good pictures. You still need to learn lighting, composition, posing your subjects, etc etc, which was always the case!

Absolutely. Every photographer should be focused on those things as job one. My point above was that many wannabe photographers just focus on gear, and they are very quick to be critical of what phones are producing. My point was that phones can and are making great pictures without requiring a bag full of gear, and that it's highlighting that gear is secondary to the skills you listed.

I guess we have different personalities in mind when it comes to gear-heads. I think of them as people chasing tiny (sometimes imperceptible) improvements which only require you to buy something as opposed to learning something. (much like the casual bikers who chase tiny weight reductions or obsess over which bike is more "aero").

>My point was that phones can and are making great pictures without requiring a bag full of gear, and that it's highlighting that gear is secondary to the skills you listed.

I'd phrase it differently though, and I'm sure you'd agree. I'd say that gear isn't secondary, but gear is a tool that should be used when appropriate. You still need carry an external flash/light/etc if you want to light your subject in poor light. You still need to carry a long lens if you want to take a picture of an eagle perched in a tree. You still need a tripod if you want long exposures, etc, etc.

..or for the day that we have all those magic baked into our "decent camera gear"!

And the problem is that it's mostly software. The main camera people (Cannon/Nikon) are terrible at software. From what I understand Cannon is a bit better, but all of the software I use from Nikon is horrible. I love the lenses, and my Nikon body, but anytime I have to use their software I cringe. I also don't see how they fix this anytime soon. It's just not part of their DNA.

You're missing who this technology focused article is for, and making a vague argument about a grandmom usecase in a retail product. Sorry, but this article is clearly intended to be viewed by people interested in photography, and also photography-technology. If you claim your tech is awesome, you will get criticized if people don't think it is all that great.

> You shouldn't have an expectation that your $1000 phone competes with a few thousand in camera, glass and filters in the right hands. It won't.

IMHO, it doesn't even beat $500 worth of camera equipment.