A year ago, we were complaining to anyone who would listen that Google Photos was holding back HDR photography. The problem was simple: When editing HDR (or Ultra HDR) images in the app, Google Photos for Android always saved a copy of the picture instead of applying the edits to the original. This seemed to stem from the fact that Photos originally couldn’t edit these types of images without stripping the HDR metadata, so keeping separate copies ensured that you didn’t lose anything important.
Google added native Ultra HDR support to Android 14, so most newer smartphones capture images with metadata that now tells the OS how to display the photo will full high dynamic range. The trouble for Google Photos, it seems, was ensuring that this metadata remained unchanged when applying edits to an image — particularly when using Google’s machine learning tools like Photo Unblur and Magic Eraser.
Google Photos is rounding out its Ultra HDR arsenal
In April, Google started rolling out a new Ultra HDR slider for the editor UI in Photos. This finally allowed users to tweak the Ultra HDR effect to make an image brighter or dimmer, and it also solved the problem we had last year with duplicate images after editing. Now, Google has announced that this slider works with many of its popular machine learning tools.
Google detailed the new capabilities in a post on its support forum (via 9to5Google). According to the post, pictures edited in Photos now retain “full dynamic range and crucial HDR metadata even after editing with features like Photo Unblur, Magic Eraser, and Portrait Light.”
Google also points out that the rollout of the new Ultra HDR slider spotted in April is now complete and highlights that it can be used to turn your SDR images into HDR photos. It doesn’t, however, replace the old HDR slider — instead, that is still available, but it’s been renamed to “Tone” to better reflect what the tool changes.
