Android RAW camera support getting big upgrade

Smartphone pictures has come a great distance, and whereas most individuals are proud of the default output from their smartphone cameras, there’ll at all times be some who need to spruce up their pictures earlier than sharing. Sadly, there’s solely a lot that photo editor apps for Android can do if you give them pictures saved within the JPEG format. If you’d like extra freedom in what you possibly can edit, then you definitely’ll want to change to RAW photography. Many Android apps with digicam performance don’t assist RAW pictures, although, however that’s set to vary because of an upcoming replace to the Jetpack CameraX library.

If you happen to aren’t conscious, RAW pictures includes saving the uncooked picture knowledge that comes straight from the digicam with none added compression or processing. The good thing about capturing in RAW is that points like white stability, publicity, sharpness, and extra may be adjusted in picture modifying software program afterward. Alternatively, RAW picture recordsdata may be dramatically bigger than JPEG photos, consuming up valuable space for storing that many cheap budget phones don’t have a number of. Whereas JPEG compression is lossy, the tip outcome normally isn’t noticeable by most individuals, particularly when the compression stage is low.

Enhancing your pictures takes time, requires some data, and isn’t normally crucial within the first place, which is why most camera apps for Android don’t seize RAW pictures by default. Most of them do assist RAW pictures, although you’ll must allow it in settings. Nevertheless, there are some apps with digicam performance that don’t but assist RAW pictures — not as a result of they don’t need to, however as a result of they’ll’t.

Apps that use the Jetpack CameraX library as a substitute of the Android Camera2 API are presently solely in a position to save pictures within the JPEG picture format. This is sensible for the reason that Jetpack CameraX library is aimed toward apps that solely want entry to the digicam for adjoining performance, corresponding to social media apps that need to allow you to take a photograph to share with your pals. The Camera2 API, however, has lengthy supported RAW picture seize, because it’s the API that’s meant for use by full-fledged digicam apps.

As a result of Camera2 is a extra sophisticated API than CameraX, many builders who don’t want superior digicam controls of their apps use CameraX as a substitute. CameraX presently doesn’t assist many options of Camera2, although Google has been working to deliver increasingly more performance over to CameraX. For instance, Google introduced Ultra HDR capture support to CameraX with model 1.4.0. And within the subsequent launch of CameraX, Google plans so as to add RAW seize assist.

Model 1.5.0-alpha03 of CameraX was launched final week, previewing what options shall be added within the steady launch of CameraX 1.5.0. With model 1.5.0, CameraX’s ImageCapture class will add two new output codecs: OUTPUT_FORMAT_RAW and OUTPUT_FORMAT_RAW_JPEG. The previous captures a single RAW picture whereas the latter captures each a RAW and a JPEG picture. RAW photos are saved within the Adobe DNG format, which is without doubt one of the most generally used file codecs for RAW photos.

It’s attention-grabbing to see CameraX get assist for RAW pictures, particularly for the reason that library isn’t meant for apps that want superior digicam performance. As extra apps use CameraX, although, there’s undoubtedly going to be extra demand on Google so as to add new performance. Maybe some builders satisfied Google of the necessity for RAW picture assist in CameraX, although we don’t know which apps plan to make use of this. Nonetheless, this modification will hopefully deliver RAW seize assist to much more third-party apps with built-in digicam performance.