Google’s Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro are the tech giant’s latest flagship smartphone offerings.
Along with an eye-catching new design and its Tensor chip, the Pixel 6 series also features a massive 50-megapixel sensor. There’s also a 12-megapixel ultrawide shooter and a 48-megapixel telephoto capable of snapping 4x zoom and 20x hybrid zoom images.
Google says that it’s critical the Pixel 6’s cameras work equitably for everyone, especially for people of colour. For the Pixel 6’s and Pixel 6 Pro’s camera array, the company says it worked with photographers and cinematographers to test the devices’ cameras under a wide range of harsh lighting conditions. The process involved snapping thousands of portraits that resulted in 25 times more diverse data sets than the average smartphone camera.
Further, Google says it improved the Pixel 6’s face detection, white balance and exposure to reduce stray lights that can often cause darker skin to look ashy or washed out. Additionally, the company says it performed blind tests across top smartphone cameras, and experts rated the Pixel 6 as best in rendering skin tone, brightness, richness and detail for people of colour.
Alongside an equitable smartphone camera, the Pixel 6 series features the ‘Magic Eraser’ feature shown off at Google I/O 2017.
Camera technology can overlook and exclude people of color.
We're committed to reversing this bias with #RealTone on #Pixel6. We worked with expert image makers 🤳🏽🤳🏿🤳🏾 to improve our 📷 algorithms to represent people of color beautifully and accurately.#Pixel6Launch pic.twitter.com/W6LLW2LhjY
— Made by Google (@madebygoogle) October 19, 2021
Magic Eraser lets users tap and highlights a person in the background of a selfie and then removes them from the image. So no more photobombing with this new phone.
Google has also added a new motion mode that makes static images look more animated through computational photography and long exposure.
For all of our coverage from Google’s Pixel 6 series event, follow this link.
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