How to Make Your Photos Look Prettier With Google’s Pixel Portrait Lighting
Who needs the latest Pixel anyway? Google is now rolling out the “Portrait Lighting” feature that was previously announced during the Pixel 4a 5G and Pixel 5 releases to older devices. I just got it running on my Google Pixel 3 XL and found it to be a great tool for artificially adjusting the light source of your portrait images.
First, make sure you have the latest versions of Android ( Android 11 ) and the Google Photos app (updated October 19, 2020). Open the app and find the portrait mode photo you took with your device. You can also use pictures taken on other smartphones, such as Samsung, or even on the iPhone.
One oddity I’ve found is that Google, for some reason, doesn’t seem to recognize that the image captured using the iPhone’s native “portrait mode” is actually your face. On the other hand, I had no problem recognizing my face when I took regular selfies on iOS, as well as selfies or “portrait” shots on my Pixel 3 XL or Samsung Galaxy Note 20.
Also, I’m using my words with caution here, because you wo n’t be able to adjust the lighting for just any photo taken in Portrait mode. For example, take a beautiful photo of your favorite plant with a blurred background and Google won’t offer you the option to tweak its lighting. As reported by Android Police , portrait lighting is a face-only editing feature:
“The important thing is that the photo contains an obvious face, whether it is a correct portrait or (sometimes) a full body photo, it shows one or two people, the face is looking directly into the camera or at an angle, and so on. You will have to trust Google’s artificial intelligence / machine learning to recognize the right circumstances, because if you don’t have an option on a particular image, there is no way to force it. “
Aside from these oddities, adjusting the lighting for the faces in the photos you take is a fairly simple (and fun) task. First, open your face image in Google Photos. Click on the “Edit” button, which looks like three sliders located at the bottom of the screen. Scroll a little to the right until you reach the Adjustments section and you should see a new Portrait Light option . If you don’t, your image is not compliant. Sorry.
Click on it and you can now choose the direction to artificially light your image by moving the superimposed circle on your shot. You can also adjust the strength of the artificial light using the slider at the bottom of the screen. Tap Auto if you want Google Photos to pick the best version of portrait lighting for you.
Now all you have to do is play around with the lighting until you’re happy with the results, hit Done and save a copy of the recently edited image, or do some additional editing before you’re done.
If you’re feeling lazy, I’ve also found that using the Portrait option in the Suggestions section is a great way to quickly adjust lighting and blur the background of an image that was otherwise shot without bokeh. It’s fast, easy, and can give pretty decent results.