Google Pixel phones have been praised and recognized for their camera prowess since the Pixel 2. Interestingly, it wasn’t the camera hardware that made them better. In fact, Google managed to beat most of the best camera phones year after year, all with average camera hardware. For example, it wasn’t until the Pixel 4 that Google started adding more than one camera to its Pixel devices. And the camera hardware didn’t really get much better until the Pixel 6 series.
What made Pixel devices so good at photography? We can thank Google’s algorithm and computational photography for such great results. In short, it was all about AI and post-processing. Google knows what generally makes an image good, and it enhances images intelligently. The trick is to improve exposure, balance highlights/shadows, increase contrast, boost colors, and so on.