The lack of communication and consistency between different departments in Google is what truly drags them down. The same goes for other major tech companies like Samsung. It leads to lackluster features that get dropped or forgotten. With the ones that remain being unkept and inconsistent. Not only that, but the companies themselves are wasting millions on redundant work in one department when the same process has been achieved in another. This is why Google products are all over the place in terms of consistency and feature support whereas companies like Apple are able to maintain a consistent brand image and create cohesive designs across the board
Well said, Android phone's cameras are really good, you just have to know how to take a good picture, and you will have a more detailed picture than iPhones, but it's just complicated as not everyone is ready to go through these process, they should try their best to improve on these little things instead of dropping new useless features every year
Being experimental is the heart of Google's DNA you hear this from many Googlers themselves and also from a book I have published by a Googler whos a Head of Google assistant department, so many intersting insights and culture of Google how they operate, that's just a nature of Google lol.. Apart from services or products that literally has no potential or future, major products and services also end up being merged together with one another so I wouldn't say that's bad, and speaking of Android Google up until now, at least in the Android department are the most consistent manufacturer to deliver timely and consistent software updates, no other Android OEMs comes close to it, Pixel ecosystem also looking very cohesive now only to get better and better as per their bold commitment to hardware/software.
@@2COLD118 LMFAO I got the money to buy a 15 pro max, but I'm not as basic to let the company tell me what's better for me instead of letting me decide where I want to move my apps in the home screen like you 😘
Google Photos didn't blur between your arms. Google is really behind now in a lot of these modes surprisingly when they should be perfecting all their camera modes while adding more functionality as well.
WOW! As usual, I am super impressed! I stopped using portrait mode with the Pixel 6 Pro and didn't try it until I had the Pixel 8 Pro, took one shot and then decided I wouldn't use it with it either. Thanks for letting me know how to get the most out of the phone in portraits!
It's very funny to me that Pixel lines were actually one of the best at portraits prior to Tensor series and the edge detections were much better than the competition, though since then other brands have gradually matched and surpassed Google in this area while Google haven't given any love to it at all especially since the Pixel 6 series. Pixel's distinctive blue-ish white balance i think is playing on the blue colours too, well said by you, I hope software will address these soon!
Not only the portrait but regular fotos too. I usually bumb up a bit the shadows before snapping a picture. Would be great at least to give you the chance to save that preset.
Personalmente, estoy agradecido por el amor que le tienes a tu trabajo. No dejas ningún hilo suelto. Esperemos que pronto tengamos un pixel como debe ser. Saludos.
Excellent analysis, alongside offering the solution(s). The 3XL had a great selfie camera. You said it quite well sir...."it's all about laziness", and not the cameras.
Google's portrait algorithm has been around since the 6th generation, but until now, Google has not been able to fix it, always darkening the entire eye area, making it look like dark eyes due to lack of sleep. It seems that since the Google Camera engineer left, everything seems to be bad, even the background blurring when taking portraits is bad.
The fact Google has a good edge detection algorithm and doesn't it use in their own camera app is outrageous. Even if it takes a bit more to process I can wait 5 more seconds for a way better result.
Indeed, the photos of the pixel 8 pro (and not only the portrait mode) need more brightness or shadow adjustment #google need to fix this, the camera team from google need to listen to what most of the users are complaining about
I just bought Pixel 8 Pro and my first wish was to give it back. The worst selfie camera ever. It exaggerates all skin imperfections to total absurd. Built-in retouch is horrible, like on 2015 cheap phones. Like you said, Google Photo editing with adding blur and more light makes photos nicer - but why should one do this on top smartphone? It should be built in, like on other top phones. PS. Reviews are simply lying, I checked few and none pointed on quite serious camera issues.
I completely agree... Worst selfie camera ever. Would never buy Pixel again. Makes me feel depressed! :(( I see every single wrinkle in that selfie:( It's much exaggerated too because of the light etc I believe but... it is still awful! I'd rather have my old Samsung from 2016. And that face change AI is even worse... Absolutely useless. Shoulders become dislocated or blurred and there is no way you can publish that photo..😢
You are completely right about this. The shade of colors isn't just in that color, red color looks pink/purple, yellow colors sometimes look grey. There is much to fix for them please address this also? Maybe make a video about how it captures red and yellow colors. A good example is taking a picture of a french fries and you see. Thank you for your videos! ☺️
I have been doing the same for quite a while..like you said, better not using portrait mode at all, instead using a normal photo mode and edit it afterwards.Incredible difference!
Thank you for this video! Over many years my understanding is that with pixel phones it is better to take regular photos and add blur via Google photos. This works well on all cameras.
I personally believe that Google didn't touched Portrait mode since the Pixel 5. Because of the different lenses and chip the portrait mode looked good, but then they changed the SoC and Lenses, but they didn't update their Portrait algorithms, which could be the reason for this... This could also be the reason why the ultrawide lens and telephoto is not supported in the Portrait mode because it wasn't before on Pixel 5 or older
Do the pictures look okay with a 3rd party app? I'm asking if it's a hardware or software issue. For example, Motorola has abysmal camera software, but the hardware is solid, so you can take nice pics with an app.
The edges are still so weak in pixel portraits.. and I thought maybe because the lenses can achieve the natural blur effect without the need for portrait mode, there's no need to use portrait mode as often. And still get a better shot.
Ever since that video when you mentioned to take the photo and apply the blur afterwards, my portraits of the kids have been substantially better. What a great tip
One thing that would really like for you to make a video on is the social media app (whatsapp, instagram, tiktok, snapchat etc) experience between android phones and the iphone. Ive seen many talks from samsung saying that htey have been working with these social media apps to improve the quality and google has even implemented camera X to help combat this disadvantage
Incredible video. I've seen a lot of videos comparing Pixel 8 Pro vs iPhone 15 Pro Max from professional photographers, but there's no doubt that this is one of the best and most serious reviews of the Google Pixel 8 Pro cameras I've seen so far (software/hardware). Thank you for this. I really hope this message gets Google #Teampixel and the Google camera team. I was looking for a way to improve portraits in my Pixel 8 Pro, since I'm not happy with the current implementation of portraits, despite the good hardware the phone already has. And just found this useful video.
The most important camera mode for me is portrait mode, and Google seriously messed up this area. Only portraits from older pixel model that has that 2x telephoto lens are somewhat useable
Your channel is so undersubscribed! You really call things by what they really are unlike the big TH-camrs! Based on my tests the Beach, Island and Desert filters (and sometimes +30 shadows) in Google Photos convert Pixel photos of human subjects to the iPhone look and feel. It would have been really nice if they allowed users to use them at the time of capture.
Wow this is crazy eye opening. I would be surprised if you didn't get contacted by some tech journalists. Google really needs to understand the ramifications of not having their departments work hand-in-hand.
on pixel 7 I almost always save raw because I know sometimes google processing will ruin the picture. also I always use portrait blur from google photos app as portrait mode is unusable, which is annoying and time consuming.
Samsung is master in edge detection when it comes to portrait. The iPhone comes second best because it does give a more realistic depth of field by blurring foreground objects.
Quite right. An intelligent and well put together video, thanks. I really want to like this phone but so many things about it seem half-baked. The weird temperature sensors does not help sell the package. This is not only inconsistent reading to reading - which really takes some doing - but up to 10 degrees off calibration based on various users' experience. As you say, a lot of these post production tweaks are pretty easy but it would be better if the Pixel team spent a bit more time fine tuning their imaging model, and less time working on their extensive launch hype. Surely they can't be short of images to test their software. At the very least they could give users the settings option of whether they want their images processed with a pastel/subtle or punchy/vibrant model.
Honest review! Good job for pointing out negative stuff, indeed there is a huge difference between edge detections... portrait before and after... not to mention is far far away the AFTER result from what apple is bringing to the table... hope they will listen and merge the teams or comunicare more, to use that, because the result is stunning! Thank you for those nice videos!
This is exactly this! People's faces are looking bad in google pixel photos! And the blur is really disappointing.... Sometimes it works perfectly, but sometimes it messes things up.
There are times the portrait mode edge detection is really good and times it's not on the pixel. None of them are flawless at this, Samsung, Google nor Apple. As someone who shoots with a dedicated camera. Currently the Sony a7iv. Depending on the depth of field and how a person turns can blur a subjects hair or ears. Also adjusting highlights or shadows before a shot is minor. We often make adjustments to get the scene as close to accurate on our more expensive cameras. Even in auto mode our more expensive cameras may need the photos tweaked a lil to more represent what we saw. I guess this is why you are able to adjust the depth and blur in Google photos to your liking. I do wish portrait mode would shoot in high resolution as well but being i can adjust blur and depth in the google app to my liking it really isn't a big deal. I normally underexpose with my dedicated camera to easily maintain highlights. In darker scenes i slightly over expose to adjust shadows better. Basically i can't expect a smartphone camera to always get it right, when a more expensive dedicated camera doesn't get everything right in auto modes. I mean isn't this one of the reason we beg for manual controls or download manual camera apps to have more control over our smartphone camera's? I don't think we would need manual controls if they got it perfectly correct all the time.
HEY dude, I have been following your channel for the last 10 months and believe me it is helpful and knowledgeable too. I especially like the in-depth reviews that you show. I am a gamer and there are many people like me who love super smooth gaming with long reliability of phones. so I request you to pls make a detailed in-depth video on the best gaming performance between "ABIONIC vs SNAPDRAGON" including ray tracing, graphics and reliability as well. Hope you understand......
The colour changing issue was there for years but no youtuber ever noticed that. I've the same colour shirt and it makes the shirt blue too. Still now.
Thanks for noting these issues, google's camera dept. should work as one team, not fragmented if true. Their edge detection hasn't progressed since pixel 3. They're having too much tsai break ? 😂
As someone who uses subtitles quite often, I missed which photo was which due to the details being in the bottom of the images which were covered by the subtitles. Wondering if this could be considered in future videos by placing the text above the images? 🙏
Google should focus more on Optics now like the Xiaomi 14 Ultra cameras or the Vivo X100 Pro cameras along with improving software algorithms for post processing, because software has its limitations if not backed by strong a strong hardware..
I love my Pixel 7 Pro, but boy that portrait mode is annoying and useless. It oversharpens, darkens and brings out all of the imperfections. I'm 27 but somehow the mode adds like 10 years of wrinkles and dark circles around my eyes that I don't even have lmao. Hopefully they will fix this in an update. What I do when taking photos of people is that I take the photos in normal mode then go onto edit and play with the denoise option and blur effect.
Absolutely agree! I think the Pixel 8 pro has been a bit of a let down photo/video quality-wise. Strangely I actually found the Pixel 6 pro camera to be brighter and portrait and videos to work better.
Great video but I'd like to add something. While the portrait blur from Google Photos is better, it's still not perfect. I wish google would stop being so stubborn and try to do everything with software and just add a depth sensor. Id rather have that over a useless temperature sensor.
I wonder if the camera app doesn't do as good of a job and limits the features because the Tensor G3 can't handle it and that it works in Google Photos because maybe that processing is done in the cloud.
Regular 2x main sensor crop has way better skin texture then portrait mode. I already gave feedback and reported these issues to google. They are slowly decreasing the sharpness but not using the sensor crop. Google is stubborn in these part and I think they are only focusing on video improvements now.
My 8 pro will insert false colors taking photos in a dimmer room. It does not look like naked eye view. I have a 3 foot Christmas gnome that has tiny Christmas lights on its color and when i take a photo with the lights on it puts a thick blue (looks like lipstick) around the thin dark line mouth of the gnomes mouth. You would have to see it but the face is snoman white with a thin line for a the smile white cheeks. The 8 pro will put a thick 1" blue lipstick around the mouth that is not really there if you look at it with naked eyes. I think the sensor detects blue light reflecting off the face then uses AI to guess and slap on blue lipstick. I cant figure out how to turn that off. I tried night mode even video and its still there. Has to be the sensor or AI that cant deal with the color properly. A old time SLR camera would never do that.
Hey, can you please try pixel 8 pro 50 mp raw? Download the dng file to any computer and check if resolution drops to 5 mpx instead of 50 mpx it's showing in pic data. I've found out that pixel lies about those and raw image has less pixels and it's visible even in side by side zoom of the same spot on the phone without copying it.
Also why not offer 24/25mpx photos as it would be the perfect middle ground to slightly faster shutter speed and better quality/details. Also it's true that all these fixes can be done software wise.
Great work! Are you using the stable release build firmeware? Or one of the developer builds? Reason is that my Google Photos blur is not as good as what you show here when I add it post shot.
I liked every single portrait as well as the HDR style of pixel 4 and now I own a pixel 6 it messes up almost every photo I would rate it a 7/10 camera experience while the pixel 4 was solid 9.5/10
On my Pixel 6 Pro, I could take a picture in portrait mode, then open the picture in Google Photos and adjust the blur level, including turning it down to 0 if desired, removing the blur effect. On the Pixel 8 Pro, I can't do this. If I open a portrait mode picture in Google photos, I can add additional blur (just like any regular picture), but it won't let me reduce or adjust the blur. I can still remove blur from old portraits taken with the P6P, but it won't work for any portraits taken with the P8P. I tried contacting support and they had me clear cache and reinstall photos updates etc. and it didn't fix it. Does your P8P do the same thing?
Yeah the shadows always look darker, the pixel 6 Pro camera had lighter shadows compared to the Pixel 7and I now I to always adjust the shadows or edit it to lighten up the image
I already told Google to appoint Emad as their software tweaker. Same for videos if you Denoise video in premier pro the night videos as well the day looks much better. Don't know if Google does it intentionally?
Good to see that someone is telling the facts ...hope this will see the @madebygoogle camera department team ;) Good job brother 👍🏼 love from Kerala ✨❤️
It's a very good video. Dine really good points discussed, demonstrated. But I have a contention, you reached to these conclusions by clicking i SINGLE photo. 😕 You should have discussed 12-15 pics at least in different lighting conditions. One photo is not a reliable amount of data to work upon. 👍👍
Yup agree. Instead of adding all those AI features. Just do the basics perfectly and consistently. Pixel 6 Pro user here, don't know why they didn't add portrait mode to 4x lens. Portrait mode saw little bit of improvement in Android 14 update thou, earlier it was unusable. Now it's somewhat usable.
i dont get it...google showed their magic software in potrait with pixel 2 & 3 and it when they used just 1 camera... but when they added another lense, the potrait getting worsed
Also, why is sony the only phone manufacturer that has best in class slow motion 4k 120 fps, this is also clearly a software feature and google is a software company right? Also, edge detection, i am an applied mathematics student and we studied image processing two years, edge detection is the basic thing you start with, there are almost thousands of articles with sophisticated edge detection techniques, why can't google improve it? It's a software problem. Another HUGE problem, lens transition. It's very bad in Pixels, okey it's a software feature and you are a software company and you suck and apple is a bigger company and knows how to do it better. BUT, when i see the latest Vivo x100 pro's lens transition in videos, it's insanely good and even makes the iphone lens transition look average. How you call yourself a software company and you get outperformed by vivo... Sorry for the rant Imad i am just mad at them.
His sir.. Recently i bought used pixel 6...i am not Happy with the portrait image quality... Can you pls suggest one good Gcam port version for pixel 6....plsssss
The fact that you cant take potraits with the zoom lens on any of the pixel phones. is a really bad feeling considering how good the pixels zoom lenses are
Still the Same Problem with the 9 series..how can google be that dumb Not to Work at such Basic Thing..any other Phone is miles ahead in terms of Portrait Mode
Is there any chance to see some Pixel 8 deep coverage? I'm about to jump from PIX 6P to 8 and I would love to see some real deep coverage, not those shitty videos you can find on YT. And most of them focus on comparing PIX 8 Pro vs PIX 8 or 7 pro
The other one understood everything. The abundance of auxiliary manipulations makes me think that I don't really need the pixel; a cheap smartphone with a custom application will give a more predictable and pleasant result. I will laugh when he tries to photograph several people in the frame with a television camera.
I'm a Google phone user since Google Nexus 6P and I will say that all new Google phones in the past 2 years have had a bad algorithm for creating the final photo quality. My old Google Nexus 6P and my old Google Pixel 3 are better most of the time for creating final quality photos and even better for capturing in Portrait Mode. I don't know what Google is doing, but this is a shame!!! Old phones are better than newest.
Google apps are a mess, the worst thing is the designers... 👎 The second it's feels like there is no communication between Google apps teams !! Third Google don't listen to it's clients feedbacks. You feel like they're just playing .. they don't take things seriously ... That's why Google can't beat Apple.
The iphone's edge detection isn't much better. Just look at the left (actually the right) arm and you can tell it has failed, spectacularly. Besides, all iphone photos looks over processed.
As a Pixel user since 2018 with Pixel 3 XL and now owning a Pixel 8 Pro, I couldn't agree more
The lack of communication and consistency between different departments in Google is what truly drags them down. The same goes for other major tech companies like Samsung. It leads to lackluster features that get dropped or forgotten. With the ones that remain being unkept and inconsistent. Not only that, but the companies themselves are wasting millions on redundant work in one department when the same process has been achieved in another. This is why Google products are all over the place in terms of consistency and feature support whereas companies like Apple are able to maintain a consistent brand image and create cohesive designs across the board
Well said, Android phone's cameras are really good, you just have to know how to take a good picture, and you will have a more detailed picture than iPhones, but it's just complicated as not everyone is ready to go through these process, they should try their best to improve on these little things instead of dropping new useless features every year
Being experimental is the heart of Google's DNA you hear this from many Googlers themselves and also from a book I have published by a Googler whos a Head of Google assistant department, so many intersting insights and culture of Google how they operate, that's just a nature of Google lol.. Apart from services or products that literally has no potential or future, major products and services also end up being merged together with one another so I wouldn't say that's bad, and speaking of Android Google up until now, at least in the Android department are the most consistent manufacturer to deliver timely and consistent software updates, no other Android OEMs comes close to it, Pixel ecosystem also looking very cohesive now only to get better and better as per their bold commitment to hardware/software.
We must have these isheeps in every android video
@@levipb1403 and there are always poor android boys that are always insecure about apple
@@2COLD118 LMFAO I got the money to buy a 15 pro max, but I'm not as basic to let the company tell me what's better for me instead of letting me decide where I want to move my apps in the home screen like you 😘
Google Photos didn't blur between your arms. Google is really behind now in a lot of these modes surprisingly when they should be perfecting all their camera modes while adding more functionality as well.
This is the dumbest thing coming from Google. Like total lack of standards. They may compensate by adding a water pH meter on the phone in pixel 9 pro
WOW! As usual, I am super impressed! I stopped using portrait mode with the Pixel 6 Pro and didn't try it until I had the Pixel 8 Pro, took one shot and then decided I wouldn't use it with it either. Thanks for letting me know how to get the most out of the phone in portraits!
The way I come rushing when I see a notification from your channel 😅
Same😂
Same here
It's very funny to me that Pixel lines were actually one of the best at portraits prior to Tensor series and the edge detections were much better than the competition, though since then other brands have gradually matched and surpassed Google in this area while Google haven't given any love to it at all especially since the Pixel 6 series.
Pixel's distinctive blue-ish white balance i think is playing on the blue colours too, well said by you, I hope software will address these soon!
Prior to the 5
Thanks! I hope Google is listening.
I love your videos. Keep up the good work
Not only the portrait but regular fotos too. I usually bumb up a bit the shadows before snapping a picture. Would be great at least to give you the chance to save that preset.
Also, Google should add a 1x portrait mode. Don't understand why it's zoomed in 1.5x by default
Personalmente, estoy agradecido por el amor que le tienes a tu trabajo. No dejas ningún hilo suelto. Esperemos que pronto tengamos un pixel como debe ser. Saludos.
OMG Thank you for addressing these issues in their approach. Needs to be spoken about more
It's crazy that iphones now have more manual control then android
google pixel 3 lineup was the potrait king
Excellent analysis, alongside offering the solution(s).
The 3XL had a great selfie camera. You said it quite well sir...."it's all about laziness", and not the cameras.
I agree with the shadow issue. I take a lot of photos for work and have to turn up the shadow every time I take a picture.
100% agree.
Post edit for people is always needed for the pixel photos quite annoying on a very expensive phone.
Google's portrait algorithm has been around since the 6th generation, but until now, Google has not been able to fix it, always darkening the entire eye area, making it look like dark eyes due to lack of sleep. It seems that since the Google Camera engineer left, everything seems to be bad, even the background blurring when taking portraits is bad.
The fact Google has a good edge detection algorithm and doesn't it use in their own camera app is outrageous. Even if it takes a bit more to process I can wait 5 more seconds for a way better result.
Indeed, the photos of the pixel 8 pro (and not only the portrait mode) need more brightness or shadow adjustment #google need to fix this, the camera team from google need to listen to what most of the users are complaining about
I just bought Pixel 8 Pro and my first wish was to give it back. The worst selfie camera ever. It exaggerates all skin imperfections to total absurd. Built-in retouch is horrible, like on 2015 cheap phones. Like you said, Google Photo editing with adding blur and more light makes photos nicer - but why should one do this on top smartphone? It should be built in, like on other top phones. PS. Reviews are simply lying, I checked few and none pointed on quite serious camera issues.
I completely agree... Worst selfie camera ever. Would never buy Pixel again. Makes me feel depressed! :(( I see every single wrinkle in that selfie:( It's much exaggerated too because of the light etc I believe but... it is still awful! I'd rather have my old Samsung from 2016. And that face change AI is even worse... Absolutely useless. Shoulders become dislocated or blurred and there is no way you can publish that photo..😢
You are completely right about this. The shade of colors isn't just in that color, red color looks pink/purple, yellow colors sometimes look grey. There is much to fix for them please address this also? Maybe make a video about how it captures red and yellow colors. A good example is taking a picture of a french fries and you see. Thank you for your videos! ☺️
I have been doing the same for quite a while..like you said, better not using portrait mode at all, instead using a normal photo mode and edit it afterwards.Incredible difference!
Totally agreed, Same goes for 9 series.
Thank you for this video! Over many years my understanding is that with pixel phones it is better to take regular photos and add blur via Google photos. This works well on all cameras.
İ also admire your passion, and your incredible attention to detail.
I personally believe that Google didn't touched Portrait mode since the Pixel 5.
Because of the different lenses and chip the portrait mode looked good, but then they changed the SoC and Lenses, but they didn't update their Portrait algorithms, which could be the reason for this...
This could also be the reason why the ultrawide lens and telephoto is not supported in the Portrait mode because it wasn't before on Pixel 5 or older
Keep the good content coming. I agree on all fronts.
Do the pictures look okay with a 3rd party app? I'm asking if it's a hardware or software issue. For example, Motorola has abysmal camera software, but the hardware is solid, so you can take nice pics with an app.
The edges are still so weak in pixel portraits.. and I thought maybe because the lenses can achieve the natural blur effect without the need for portrait mode, there's no need to use portrait mode as often. And still get a better shot.
Ever since that video when you mentioned to take the photo and apply the blur afterwards, my portraits of the kids have been substantially better. What a great tip
Thank you for making a video of what i have noticed for years! I'm doing the same in increasing the shadows and shadows only.
One thing that would really like for you to make a video on is the social media app (whatsapp, instagram, tiktok, snapchat etc) experience between android phones and the iphone. Ive seen many talks from samsung saying that htey have been working with these social media apps to improve the quality and google has even implemented camera X to help combat this disadvantage
Incredible video. I've seen a lot of videos comparing Pixel 8 Pro vs iPhone 15 Pro Max from professional photographers, but there's no doubt that this is one of the best and most serious reviews of the Google Pixel 8 Pro cameras I've seen so far (software/hardware). Thank you for this. I really hope this message gets Google #Teampixel and the Google camera team.
I was looking for a way to improve portraits in my Pixel 8 Pro, since I'm not happy with the current implementation of portraits, despite the good hardware the phone already has. And just found this useful video.
The most important camera mode for me is portrait mode, and Google seriously messed up this area. Only portraits from older pixel model that has that 2x telephoto lens are somewhat useable
Your channel is so undersubscribed! You really call things by what they really are unlike the big TH-camrs! Based on my tests the Beach, Island and Desert filters (and sometimes +30 shadows) in Google Photos convert Pixel photos of human subjects to the iPhone look and feel. It would have been really nice if they allowed users to use them at the time of capture.
Wow this is crazy eye opening. I would be surprised if you didn't get contacted by some tech journalists. Google really needs to understand the ramifications of not having their departments work hand-in-hand.
on pixel 7 I almost always save raw because I know sometimes google processing will ruin the picture.
also I always use portrait blur from google photos app as portrait mode is unusable, which is annoying and time consuming.
Samsung is master in edge detection when it comes to portrait. The iPhone comes second best because it does give a more realistic depth of field by blurring foreground objects.
Google needs to stop adding contrast to humans
Quite right. An intelligent and well put together video, thanks.
I really want to like this phone but so many things about it seem half-baked. The weird temperature sensors does not help sell the package. This is not only inconsistent reading to reading - which really takes some doing - but up to 10 degrees off calibration based on various users' experience.
As you say, a lot of these post production tweaks are pretty easy but it would be better if the Pixel team spent a bit more time fine tuning their imaging model, and less time working on their extensive launch hype. Surely they can't be short of images to test their software. At the very least they could give users the settings option of whether they want their images processed with a pastel/subtle or punchy/vibrant model.
Honest review! Good job for pointing out negative stuff, indeed there is a huge difference between edge detections... portrait before and after... not to mention is far far away the AFTER result from what apple is bringing to the table... hope they will listen and merge the teams or comunicare more, to use that, because the result is stunning! Thank you for those nice videos!
This is exactly this! People's faces are looking bad in google pixel photos! And the blur is really disappointing.... Sometimes it works perfectly, but sometimes it messes things up.
There are times the portrait mode edge detection is really good and times it's not on the pixel. None of them are flawless at this, Samsung, Google nor Apple. As someone who shoots with a dedicated camera. Currently the Sony a7iv. Depending on the depth of field and how a person turns can blur a subjects hair or ears. Also adjusting highlights or shadows before a shot is minor. We often make adjustments to get the scene as close to accurate on our more expensive cameras. Even in auto mode our more expensive cameras may need the photos tweaked a lil to more represent what we saw. I guess this is why you are able to adjust the depth and blur in Google photos to your liking. I do wish portrait mode would shoot in high resolution as well but being i can adjust blur and depth in the google app to my liking it really isn't a big deal. I normally underexpose with my dedicated camera to easily maintain highlights. In darker scenes i slightly over expose to adjust shadows better. Basically i can't expect a smartphone camera to always get it right, when a more expensive dedicated camera doesn't get everything right in auto modes. I mean isn't this one of the reason we beg for manual controls or download manual camera apps to have more control over our smartphone camera's? I don't think we would need manual controls if they got it perfectly correct all the time.
HEY dude, I have been following your channel for the last 10 months and believe me it is helpful and knowledgeable too. I especially like the in-depth reviews that you show. I am a gamer and there are many people like me who love super smooth gaming with long reliability of phones. so I request you to pls make a detailed in-depth video on the best gaming performance between "ABIONIC vs SNAPDRAGON" including ray tracing, graphics and reliability as well. Hope you understand......
Sorry, how did you added the blur efrect in Google Photos?
On Pixel you have portrait blur under the edit menu in Google photos
The colour changing issue was there for years but no youtuber ever noticed that. I've the same colour shirt and it makes the shirt blue too. Still now.
Thank you for making this video. I hope Google listens.
Great review and spot on .I'm seriously thinking of buying 8pro .Maybe we should start a petition to get them to fix these problems. Thanks
Thanks for noting these issues, google's camera dept. should work as one team, not fragmented if true. Their edge detection hasn't progressed since pixel 3. They're having too much tsai break ? 😂
It's crazy how long they've left potrait mode untouched on the pixel phones, they used to be the top phones for that mode.
Thanks for the video... This kind of comparison is only expected from this channel.. Can you pls do same potrait comparison with pixel 6 and 7.....
Thank you for making this video. Hopefully, Google will finally listen to the users.
As someone who uses subtitles quite often, I missed which photo was which due to the details being in the bottom of the images which were covered by the subtitles. Wondering if this could be considered in future videos by placing the text above the images? 🙏
Google should focus more on Optics now like the Xiaomi 14 Ultra cameras or the Vivo X100 Pro cameras along with improving software algorithms for post processing, because software has its limitations if not backed by strong a strong hardware..
I love my Pixel 7 Pro, but boy that portrait mode is annoying and useless.
It oversharpens, darkens and brings out all of the imperfections.
I'm 27 but somehow the mode adds like 10 years of wrinkles and dark circles around my eyes that I don't even have lmao.
Hopefully they will fix this in an update.
What I do when taking photos of people is that I take the photos in normal mode then go onto edit and play with the denoise option and blur effect.
Absolutely agree! I think the Pixel 8 pro has been a bit of a let down photo/video quality-wise. Strangely I actually found the Pixel 6 pro camera to be brighter and portrait and videos to work better.
Great video but I'd like to add something. While the portrait blur from Google Photos is better, it's still not perfect. I wish google would stop being so stubborn and try to do everything with software and just add a depth sensor. Id rather have that over a useless temperature sensor.
I wonder if the camera app doesn't do as good of a job and limits the features because the Tensor G3 can't handle it and that it works in Google Photos because maybe that processing is done in the cloud.
Regular 2x main sensor crop has way better skin texture then portrait mode. I already gave feedback and reported these issues to google. They are slowly decreasing the sharpness but not using the sensor crop. Google is stubborn in these part and I think they are only focusing on video improvements now.
Is there a chance for a camera comparison between the Magic 5 pro, Pixel 8 pro & 15 pro max?
Great analysis 🤌🏼
How could you not mention the extreme oversharpening? Just Wondering...
My 8 pro will insert false colors taking photos in a dimmer room. It does not look like naked eye view. I have a 3 foot Christmas gnome that has tiny Christmas lights on its color and when i take a photo with the lights on it puts a thick blue (looks like lipstick) around the thin dark line mouth of the gnomes mouth. You would have to see it but the face is snoman white with a thin line for a the smile white cheeks. The 8 pro will put a thick 1" blue lipstick around the mouth that is not really there if you look at it with naked eyes. I think the sensor detects blue light reflecting off the face then uses AI to guess and slap on blue lipstick. I cant figure out how to turn that off. I tried night mode even video and its still there. Has to be the sensor or AI that cant deal with the color properly. A old time SLR camera would never do that.
Hey, can you please try pixel 8 pro 50 mp raw?
Download the dng file to any computer and check if resolution drops to 5 mpx instead of 50 mpx it's showing in pic data.
I've found out that pixel lies about those and raw image has less pixels and it's visible even in side by side zoom of the same spot on the phone without copying it.
Also why not offer 24/25mpx photos as it would be the perfect middle ground to slightly faster shutter speed and better quality/details.
Also it's true that all these fixes can be done software wise.
Great work! Are you using the stable release build firmeware? Or one of the developer builds? Reason is that my Google Photos blur is not as good as what you show here when I add it post shot.
Shadows are part of nature!
Never used portrait mode... Always shot raw and edited in Lightroom the Photoshop..
I liked every single portrait as well as the HDR style of pixel 4 and now I own a pixel 6 it messes up almost every photo I would rate it a 7/10 camera experience while the pixel 4 was solid 9.5/10
On my Pixel 6 Pro, I could take a picture in portrait mode, then open the picture in Google Photos and adjust the blur level, including turning it down to 0 if desired, removing the blur effect.
On the Pixel 8 Pro, I can't do this. If I open a portrait mode picture in Google photos, I can add additional blur (just like any regular picture), but it won't let me reduce or adjust the blur. I can still remove blur from old portraits taken with the P6P, but it won't work for any portraits taken with the P8P.
I tried contacting support and they had me clear cache and reinstall photos updates etc. and it didn't fix it.
Does your P8P do the same thing?
Yeah the shadows always look darker, the pixel 6 Pro camera had lighter shadows compared to the Pixel 7and I now I to always adjust the shadows or edit it to lighten up the image
I already told Google to appoint Emad as their software tweaker. Same for videos if you Denoise video in premier pro the night videos as well the day looks much better. Don't know if Google does it intentionally?
I hope someone forward ur video to the camera team at Google.
Good to see that someone is telling the facts ...hope this will see the @madebygoogle camera department team ;)
Good job brother 👍🏼 love from Kerala ✨❤️
just lift the shadows with the slider in camera app?!
This man needs to work at Google! You're the best...
I'm still wondering why the hell you can't use the 5x lens for portraits
It's a very good video.
Dine really good points discussed, demonstrated.
But I have a contention, you reached to these conclusions by clicking i SINGLE photo.
😕
You should have discussed 12-15 pics at least in different lighting conditions. One photo is not a reliable amount of data to work upon.
👍👍
Yup agree. Instead of adding all those AI features. Just do the basics perfectly and consistently. Pixel 6 Pro user here, don't know why they didn't add portrait mode to 4x lens. Portrait mode saw little bit of improvement in Android 14 update thou, earlier it was unusable. Now it's somewhat usable.
i dont get it...google showed their magic software in potrait with pixel 2 & 3 and it when they used just 1 camera...
but when they added another lense, the potrait getting worsed
Also, why is sony the only phone manufacturer that has best in class slow motion 4k 120 fps, this is also clearly a software feature and google is a software company right? Also, edge detection, i am an applied mathematics student and we studied image processing two years, edge detection is the basic thing you start with, there are almost thousands of articles with sophisticated edge detection techniques, why can't google improve it? It's a software problem.
Another HUGE problem, lens transition. It's very bad in Pixels, okey it's a software feature and you are a software company and you suck and apple is a bigger company and knows how to do it better. BUT, when i see the latest Vivo x100 pro's lens transition in videos, it's insanely good and even makes the iphone lens transition look average. How you call yourself a software company and you get outperformed by vivo...
Sorry for the rant Imad i am just mad at them.
Bad portrait was the only reason I choose s23 ultra over pixel 8 pro when I upgraded from pixel 5
His sir.. Recently i bought used pixel 6...i am not Happy with the portrait image quality... Can you pls suggest one good Gcam port version for pixel 6....plsssss
It's issue with other colors as well returned the phone in 2 days
LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK OF GOOGLEPLEX !!
Thank you Emad,
JaneLee - in Suburban Philadelphia
11/16/23
I like the dark shadows
It's good for landscape, but looking like Nosferatu isn't fun. Google has had this issue since at least my first Pixel- 4a.
Thank you, finally a reviewer tells the truth about the pixel cameras.
The fact that you cant take potraits with the zoom lens on any of the pixel phones. is a really bad feeling considering how good the pixels zoom lenses are
Still the Same Problem with the 9 series..how can google be that dumb Not to Work at such Basic Thing..any other Phone is miles ahead in terms of Portrait Mode
Is there any chance to see some Pixel 8 deep coverage? I'm about to jump from PIX 6P to 8 and I would love to see some real deep coverage, not those shitty videos you can find on YT. And most of them focus on comparing PIX 8 Pro vs PIX 8 or 7 pro
my pixel doesnt really produce true to life shades of blue color
The other one understood everything. The abundance of auxiliary manipulations makes me think that I don't really need the pixel; a cheap smartphone with a custom application will give a more predictable and pleasant result.
I will laugh when he tries to photograph several people in the frame with a television camera.
I'm a Google phone user since Google Nexus 6P and I will say that all new Google phones in the past 2 years have had a bad algorithm for creating the final photo quality. My old Google Nexus 6P and my old Google Pixel 3 are better most of the time for creating final quality photos and even better for capturing in Portrait Mode. I don't know what Google is doing, but this is a shame!!! Old phones are better than newest.
Great video! Do you normally report this issues/bugs in Google Issue Tracker? I do, with Pixel devices, and they usually fix it!
Fantastic in depth review. Google really is bad in portrait. It's just too dark. U r spot on
Hey Google... did you get that? 👍
Iphones tend to make pics warm and google make their pics contrasty
Google apps are a mess, the worst thing is the designers... 👎 The second it's feels like there is no communication between Google apps teams !! Third Google don't listen to it's clients feedbacks. You feel like they're just playing .. they don't take things seriously ... That's why Google can't beat Apple.
The iphone's edge detection isn't much better. Just look at the left (actually the right) arm and you can tell it has failed, spectacularly. Besides, all iphone photos looks over processed.