Why are images on pixel devices good? Is it because of the Pixel Camera?

0j923jd023j

so we all know that images shot from a pixel device such as a pixel 7, pixel 8, pixel 9, etc... are really really good, crisp and clean. why is that? is it because of the pixel camera APPLICATION? or the camera HARDWARE on these pixel devices? or is it because of the POST PROCESSING that the google photos do to the images?

also since we are all using graphene os, if i install the stock pixel camera and google photos from the aurora store, will i also get the same post processing?

or am i all wrong in all of these aspects? can someone enlighten me with this?

thank you

Pocketstar

0j923jd023j
In my personal experience I've noticed that when I zoom in on photo's made with the Google pixel camera application there is an "artificial edge enhancement" going on, so there appear white lines across sharp edges, this might not be pretty on large monitors and paper prints.
The GrapheneOS camera app keeps everything "untampered."
I still prefer OpenCamera considering I have more control and can turn off all of the enhancements and even shoot in DNG so I can change alot of things before the photo will be processed into an compressed format like jpg.
In OpenCamera for 4K video I suggest 30Mbs 60fps for optimal quality and a small enough filesize.

secrec

0j923jd023j so we all know that images shot from a pixel device such as a pixel 7, pixel 8, pixel 9, etc... are really really good, crisp and clean.

Overprocessed crap actually! Its the camera application that makes them so crappy.

0j923jd023j

Pocketstar thank you very much for detailing these things.
i would just like to ask, does opencamera also do post processing on the images that you take?
by untampered, what do you exactly mean by that?
thank you

Pocketstar

0j923jd023j
Thanks!
By "untampered" I meant post-processed, tampered (non-original) photo's have artificial sharpness, more colors, etc.
This has nothing to do with security or anything.
OpenCamera can also "tamper" with photos, but all of these options can be disabled, like noise reduction and edge enhancement.
Aso saving the photo in both DNG (RAW) and JPG is advised if you want to keep an unprocessed image, a digital negative so to say.
Make sure the photoquality is set to 100%.
OpenCamera (Mark Harman is the creator, be minded of fakes on the Play Store) and its source code can be obtained in the following places;:
https://sourceforge.net/p/opencamera/code/ci/master/tree/
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.sourceforge.opencamera/
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.sourceforge.opencamera&hl=nl
All the processing can also be done afterwards with tools like GIMP, including added sharpness.

Pocketstar

Pocketstar
Well, let's say, "unaltered", those weird terms I threw around only caused confusion, and then I started to call it "post-processed" again to add to the confusion, grr, my apologies; my native language is not English.

I actually meant that I believe that the GrapheneOS camera app just doesn't do any severe image editing (which is good) and the Google Camera app does, but image editing can always be done afterwards, with the GrapheneOS camera app (and OpenCamera) people can make pictures without regretting those edits that cannot be undone.

0j923jd023j

Pocketstar thank you very much for clearing these out with me. i now understand what happens when we use the gcam application.

thanks also for providing the original link for opencamera, ill give this a go and experiment on it.. ill see the main differences between the gcam and opencam

0j923jd023j

secrec may you share your experiences on the gcam and why do you say that it is overprocessed?
what app do you use as your daily image taking app?

Pocketstar

0j923jd023j
Thanks again!
When you zoom in on a photo made with gcam you can see a subtle increase of light (which I referred to as "white lines" another one of my silly naming conventions) right next to sharp edges of objects.
There also seem to be some darker contrast as well on the other side of sharp edges. (Like a photo of green leaves)
This is an artificial enhancement of photos, they have been processed.
With the GrapheneOS camera app this does not seem to happen, it takes the images the way they are captured by the lens without any modifications.
For image quality I advise OpenCamera (my daily camera app of choice) due to its sophisticated control of the imagery and video and RAW support.
However, for people that just want to make a snap or video wihout too much hassle, I still advise the GrapheneOS camera over the Gcam app.
Especially if photos are printed on poster format or A4 paper, the edge enhancement of the GCam app become too appearant, it does not look pretty.
I always use GIMP (a program similar to photoshop) in order to sharpen my photos afterwards if I still wanted that, but at least the originals have been preserved and no details got lost this way.
Keep in mind that I am not a pro at photography, so due take my advises with a grain of salt.

secrec

0j923jd023j why do you say that it is overprocessed

Have you even looked at a picture taken with it? They're bad enough to make your eyes bleed.

0j923jd023j

Pocketstar When you zoom in on a photo made with gcam you can see a subtle increase of light (which I referred to as "white lines" another one of my silly naming conventions) right next to sharp edges of objects.
There also seem to be some darker contrast as well on the other side of sharp edges. (Like a photo of green leaves)
This is an artificial enhancement of photos, they have been processed.

i just tried taking some photos using the gcam and i did notice them until you pointed them out in detail here! im also not a photography person but i would just like nice photos of random things that i take photos of.

Pocketstar Especially if photos are printed on poster format or A4 paper, the edge enhancement of the GCam app become too appearant, it does not look pretty.

this is a very good consideration since i sometimes print some of the images that i take

Pocketstar

I've just compared the three apps once again to be certain.
GCam does indeed over-process the photos.
GrapheneOS cam is quite decent, I advise it for people who does not want to trouble themselves with too many settings.
OpenCamera has the greatest results, but only at 100% jpeg quality, and both edge enhancement and noise reduction turned off, (it can result in colored pixelnoise if noise reduction is off) also, I turned on DNG+JPG. (With DNG you can determine the whitebalans afterwards. (It is good to correct these "yellow" indoor pics)
For more professional photography I have a camera with an APS-C sensor or higher. (I have a budget Sony alpha6100 with 16-55mm and 50-200mm lenses, which is quite a decent camera)

0j923jd023j

Pocketstar

Pocketstar I've just compared the three apps once again to be certain.

wahh! thank you for the effort on investigating this.. im not much of a photo person so i miss a lot of details, but i also want my pictures to be nice and crisp since i take a lot of pictures

Pocketstar This is not a defect, and it is also not a limitation of running a custom operating system.

this is a very intersting new thing that ive seen.... im gonna read about this

just another thing, since you mainly use opencamera, which does not do any post processing on the images, do you manually edit each and every pic that you take?

Pocketstar

Furthermore, some hardware resolution (50MP on the pixel 7) is higher than the output resolution (12.5MP on Pixel 7) of photos due to pixel binning.
To my understanding; pixel binning utilizes more pixels in order to have better light sensitivity and therefore less noise.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_binning
This is not a defect, and it is also not a limitation of running a custom operating system.

Pocketstar

0j923jd023j
Well, OpenCamera (which has an free software license (GPLv3) and has no trackers or internet permissions) does do a small amount of post-processing, (altough alot more subtle than gcam) but you can turn those off in the settings. (I would leave on noise reduction in some cases due to the coloured pixels, however I always turn off edge enhancement)
The closest thing to unprocessed photos are DNG's, but you need a special gallery to view that extension, and the results can vary greatly because it will show only a rough example.
And no, I don't always edit each and every picture, but sometimes I do when it seems appropiate (like for effects or a little extra contrast for example) but I always keep the originals (JPG+DNG) when they are nice enough.
Shooting the photos in PNG or TIFF formats might even be better than JPG.
Do keep in mind that shooting photos in PNG, TIFF or unprocesed DNG may result in greater filesizes, you might run out of storage faster that way.
So in short; Using OpenCamera, turning off edge enhancement in settings and turning on the 100% quality option and choose to shoot photos in DNG+JPG may net you the best results.
For 4K video I recommend 30Mbs @60fps.

pled

Thank you for all your advice, I will have a look to OpenCamera.
Currently, I use GCam in place of GOS Cam mainly because of the file size, which is an important criteria to me : GCam picture is almost half-size compared to GOS Cam. I don't really know why, probably it is part od the compression used by Google ? Do you confirm this and do you know why ? (I am using Pixel 6a by the way).

Pocketstar

pled
No problem!
When it comes to filesizes; it all depends on how much compression is used on Jpeg, in OpenCamera you can regulate it, a 100% is the best quality and the lower percentage the more compression artifacts will be visible.
In short; smaller filesizes are not always better, but if you prefer quantity over quality it is a good option to consider like with limited available storage, or when people make lots of photo's, in these cases a higher compression (lower percentage) might be benificial.
Gcam might have an option for quality, but I'm not sure.
GrapheneOS camera does, just choose "optimize for quality".

[deleted]

pled if you are pressed by the storage space you can always consider media storage. You don't need your whole life's worth on your device.

pled

Pocketstar

You're right, I understand now : regarding Gcam, I don't see any setting regarding quality, except using H.265/HEVC format, which I didn't activate. But looking deeper at compression rate (using identify -verbose command from ImageMagik) I could see the Gcam is using 95% quality for JPEG compression, when GrapheneOS camera was set to 100%.
Resulting file size is like below :
GrapheneOS at 100%: 5,3 Mo
Gcam at 95% : 2,8 Mo
Then setting GrapheneOS at 95% : 1,9 Mo

So I have now the explanation for the file size gap : it is all about quality compression. And 5% less of quality reduces the file size drastically ! It is a big surprise to me.

@[deleted] : yes this is what I do, using Nextcloud to upload pictures to my cloud, then doing some cleaning regularly on the phone. But having such big difference between both apps without understanding why was questioning me. Now I know the reason, I will compare pictures at 95% and 100% and see if it is worth to use 100% for my (basic) usage of pictures.

Pocketstar

pled
H.265/HEVC are indeed video codecs, it is best to leave that at its default setting, that is mostly the best option.
I did not know the GrapheneOS camera app's compression ratio, but a JPG compression ratio of 90% or above should be fine without getting too many artifacts.
My main issue with camera apps is that they often apply a form of "photo editing", like edge enhancement, regardless of the compression ratio being used, which in turn can irreversbly alter the originally captured image.
As for uncompressed quality, I recommend DNG, PNG and TIFF formats.
In short, there are several seperate subjects:

-Compression ratio. (Quality)
-Post processing like edge enhancement and noise reduction.
-Extension/format of photo. (JPG, PNG, DNG, etc)
-Video codecs. (Determines what form of videocompression is being used)

Camera pro's and cons of Gcam, GrapheneOS cam, OpenCamera:

-OpenCamera
Pro's: Gives you full control of all of the above features, shoots in DNG format, etc.
Cons: May be difficult for beginners to setup.

-GrapheneOS camera
Pro's: Easy to use, preserves a decent quality without altering the original photo.
Cons: Not too many options for advanced photography.

-Gcam
Pro's: Photo's appear sharper at first glance, the main reason why most prefer it.
It does have a decent amount of options.
Con's: After zooming in or printing photos on paper, the shortcomings of heavy post-processing become appearant.

I would suggest choosing the camera app that fits you best, or install multiple, at least now you are aware of the pro's and cons of these three apps.
I could not think myself away from OpenCamera, but that is only because it fits my profile best, I prefer long exposure photos with phone-tripods at night and no flash, or manual control over my focus so I can make a photo of a small object and blur out the rest.
I like to shoot in DNG so I can alter the white balance and other things afterwards, and export them in a format of choice. (Usually lossless PNG)
Manual control is my thing, but it requires patience and trial and error to master some of these things.
For most people GrapheneOS camera is fine.
Gcam is also fine if you can turn off edge enhancement, I am not sure if that is possible, I am too attached to OpenCamera to bother. (-: