Your Cellphone Camera’s Digital Processing Settings and You

I am mad about cellphone cameras hiding the processing they do to my photos, and I am glad about software I found that lets me control it and opt in and out.

A breakdown of what I noticed on my Pixel 6 Pro camera and what I used to get around it:

This was initially written on instagram, dictated into the stories feature, so, uh , that’s what I’m putting here, at least to start. As I am still living that partial dominant hand paralysis life, alt text taken from IDs generously written by brianbrianbrian on tumblr.

Here’s the website for the app I’m getting so much good use out of: https://opencamera.org.uk/ – it’s open source, android only. A comparable app iOS folks have recommended is Camera+, but I don’t think it’s free.

important note! this is an open source app, and that means scammers can copy it, relist it, and fill it with ads or malware. Make sure the version you get is published by Mark Harman, and remember it’s free and you shouldn’t be asked to pay for it on the app store at all.

An example of how much this means to me:

I’ve been really feeling like I’m terrible at photographing my own work, especially watercolour, and i can’t seem to really capture what makes a painting special in person.

Here’s some examples of my attempts to photograph this sketchbook painting using the native camera app on my phone:

no matter the exposure, the lighting, the lens I use, it’s grainy, blotchy, the colours feel off, the contrast is too much… it really doesn’t capture what’s on paper in front of me!

so then i try with the processing turned off in Open Camera:

it’s night and day!

A clearer comparison for you:

To sum up what’s different: the google camera app is trying to reduce noise AND sharpen the image it creates, leading it to both remove actual colour complexity in my painting and then to oversharpen what details it kept. It’s also doing a ton of HDR value-balancing, attempting to even out contrast across the whole image instead of letting some parts be darker and others lighter. In the end, it makes my watercolour painting grainy and high contrast, while removing all the subtle colour and value choices I made while painting.

The open camera photo shows you the nuance that’s in the actual painting – or at least something much closer to it!

what a game changer!

A few notes!

First, this may remind you of a scandal specifically regarding moon photography! You can read more about that here: https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/13/23637401/samsung-fake-moon-photos-ai-galaxy-s21-s23-ultra

Secondly, a lot of folks were confused about why I would need this app when my phone can shoot raw photos in the native app as well! And to that I have a two stage answer!

  1. Bold of you to assume google has made its raw files pristine. They’re certainly less chewed up than the jpgs, but not all raw files are equal, and these are not great. Google also does not allow raw photography through all three of the lenses – only the main one, as far as I can tell. If I want less processing on a photo I take through the telephoto lens, I need to use OpenCamera to take a jpg photo. Additionally, google’s camera app, evenwhen shooting raw, doesn’t give me any granular control over exposure, focus, ISO or colour. OpenCamera solves many problems at once for me, and shooting raw in the native app solves none of them completely.
  2. It occurs to me that people who do shoot raw might not understand how inaccessible that can be for folks who don’t! And folks who don’t shoot raw at all might not know what it entails. So I’ve put up a post about what I weigh when deciding whether or not to shoot raw right here: https://www.portablecity.net/what-format-you-might-want-to-save-digital-photos-in/

Finally, I intend to keep growing and cleaning up posts like this as I research and experiment and learn about this stuff! So if you have questions I haven’t answered yet, or suggestions, definitely drop me a comment below so I can follow up.


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