The capabilities of smartphone cameras have grown immensely and now, they can do a lot of incredible things. You can blur the background of a photo or even a live video and more. Google Camera is one of the best software available on Android devices. Google Camera is a default camera app on Pixel devices although other smartphones can download a modded version to witness their incredible and sheer performance. But again, Google Camera isn’t all perfect. It’s not just the GCam but rather all cameras are attuned towards capturing subjects with lighter skin tones better than the ones with darker tonnes. This is something Google is trying to fix with this new update.
Google Camera will auto-white balance
According to the announcement made by Sundar Pichai at the Google I/O Conference 2021, the tech juggernaut is developing algorithms that can adjust auto-white balance and exposure to improve the camera sensor’s ability to capture subjects with dark skin tones. For this tech to work, Google used a huge dump of data in its broad data set of images of people with brown and blacks faces so that the artificial intelligence with other tech can learn from it.
Based on the output, Google Camera can tweak the image to create photos of people with dark skin tones as true as possible. This includes avoiding the ill effects of de-saturating and over-brightening on the images. The output basically colors with accurate representation.
Further, Google is also working on creating an artificial bokeh effect (portrait mode) where the software would blur hairs at the edges. However, Google is working on algorithms using machine learning that would help create a depth map of hair types and process the image accordingly.
Google is currently working on experts in the photography and image departments with a diverse set of hair types, skin tones, and cultural backgrounds. The experts sorted the images in the pool that would then go to machine learning algorithms to process them.
As said, the latest feature on the Google Camera (GCam) is slated to arrive on Pixel devices following the release of the upcoming Pixel series. Soon, it will arrive across other Android smartphones. There’s no timeline available at the moment.
