You might soon be able to capture Ultra HDR photos with third-party apps on your Google Pixel

With the launch of the Pixel 8 series, Google also announced ‘Ultra HDR’, a new photo capture format that takes full advantage of the capabilities and quality of modern displays on smartphones with HDR support. An Ultra HDR picture has additional metadata (a ‘gainmap’) that, on compatible devices and apps, shows a more vibrant and deeper range of colors. That said, a recent report suggests that Google is working on adding Ultra HDR support to the CameraX API.

In case you don’t know, CameraX is an Android API announced in 2020 that serves as a ‘bridge’ between a device’s stock camera features and third-party camera apps (or apps with camera functions, like messaging and social media ones). If a developer integrates CameraX API, their app will be able to access native features of the camera system of the device it runs on. That said, it seems that Google wants to extend the use of its Ultra HDR photo format, as a recent finding from Android expert Mishaal Rahman indicates that the company is working on integrating it with the CameraX API.

This means that third-party apps will be able to take photos using the Ultra HDR format if the device is compatible and if the app developer implements the API. This will be especially useful for third-party camera apps, but also to improve the quality of the photos you take from social apps.

The operation of Ultra HDR photos taken by third-party apps is expected to be exactly the same as on the Pixel 8 series. That is, the image improvement will be shown on HDR screens through apps compatible with the format (like Google Photos and Google Messages), while SDR screens or non-compatible apps will show an image in ‘normal’ quality, without any improvement.

It is not yet known exactly when the integration of the Ultra HDR format into the CameraX API will occur, but once it is available, it will be another valuable tool that will help developers to offer better camera apps.

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