After recently taking over the best feature, Google Photos is now trying to convince us that it wasn’t good in the first place and warned users about the consequences.
Google Photos logo
In a recent subscriber email, the Google Photos team introduced new premium editing features available exclusively to its Google One paying customers. However, the e-mail also contains a somewhat surprising section, which encourages users to use more of their storage quota from high-quality upload to original quality or risks seemingly serious consequences.
According to the e-mail, “quality original photos keep the most details and allow you to enlarge, crop and print photos with fewer pixels.” While this statement is objectively true, it contradicts what Google has told us in the past about its high-quality option.
At its launch in 2015, Google Photo creator Anil Sabharwal promised that high-quality uploads offer “almost identical visual quality” compared to your original photos.
But now Google wants to see a seemingly huge difference in quality between the two settings and be willing to pay extra for it. It seems that “Original Quality” is now all of a sudden something we should all be willing to pay extra for.
Here’s the image Google used to show the difference between original quality and high quality:
Original quality images may look better than Google’s high-quality option, but not so much,
So do the two quality settings offer a visual quality almost identical to the one originally promised, or do the high-quality images actually look like a pixelated mess above the originals compared to the originals? Should you really switch to the original quality as Google suggests and pay more for the extra storage it will need?
High-quality images are limited to 16 megapixels for photos or 1080p resolution for video and can be stored for free on the service until June 2021. The original quality uploads, on the other hand, come at any resolution your camera has set. can often produce larger file sizes that exceed the 16 megapixel / 1080p limit. These larger files consume the user’s storage share and require the purchase of a Google One storage plan with the initial depletion of 15 GB of free storage.
If you are worried about the loss of quality if you do not switch to the original quality, then do not worry. It is important to note that the Google image example is not absolutely representative of the difference you will actually see between the two quality settings. Most people will probably not notice the difference at all.
On the other hand, the cameras have come a long way since 2015, and if you made the decision to stay with high quality then you may want to reconsider the option for a moment if you have a new phone with much higher specifications. which you actually use.
If, for example, you started shooting a lot of videos in 4K, or even 8K, then we recommend that you put together a plan to keep them in their original quality. With the photos, it’s a little different: the iPhone 12 Pro Max, for example, comes with a 12-megapixel main sensor that falls below the 16-megapixel limit. However, if your phone offers a high-resolution option, such as a 108 megapixel mode, it’s a different story.
In any case, think about your quality options, but don’t be fooled by Google’s pixelated bird warning. You will probably do well with high quality.
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