If there’s one thing that you likely noticed from paying attention to the Google Pixel 9 series launch, it is that Google seems to be paying a lot more attention to its software than its hardware these days. Even though the new phones come with Android 14, there are several new software tricks present.
One of the newest ones is what Google calls Zoom Enhance and it is going to be available on the Pixel 9 smartphones right out of the box, though the Google Pixel 8 Pro is getting the feature too. A Google employee has shown samples of how it works and I have to say it is disturbingly good.
Google’s New Zoom Enhance Feature Will Help You Crop Into Pictures With Less Quality Lost
Have you ever watched those movies where secret agents or some high-tech branch of law enforcement is looking at a blurry image of a suspect and then the main character says “enhance” and the tech guy magically makes the image more detailed? Well, for the most part, that has never been possible and is one of those things that we just accept from movies. However, with Google’s Zoom Enhance, that might be set to change.
The first thing you might think based on the name is that this feature lets you use your phone’s camera’s digital zoom with less loss of quality. But wait, that’s what Super Res Zoom does (which the Pixel 9 Pro Fold doesn’t have), so what does Zoom Enhance do? Well, it’s used on pictures that have already been taken, and it doesn’t even need to be a photo that you took on a Pixel device. It’ll work on any pictures, even your baby photos.
Google’s Peyman Milanfar Showed Us Some Sample Photos
The best part is that we don’t necessarily need to sit around and guess whether this feature works as well as they claim it does. Thanks to Peyman Milanfar, a Google employee who works on their Computational Imaging, Machine Learning, and Vision team, we get to see what it can do.
As I said earlier, it’ll be able to work its magic on photos taken by your Google Pixel phone, photos sent from other smartphones, and even old pictures such as the ones you might have from your childhood. In fact, it even works on drawings and images that might have been conjured up by AI.
You can follow the thread in the tweet above to see the full selection of Zoom Enhanced images.
The Google Pixel 9 Series And The Google Pixel 8 Pro Will Get This Feature
To use this, you just go to Google Photos and then the Tools section, as long as you’re using a compatible device. At the moment, the only compatible device that is fully available in the market is the Google Pixel 8 Pro. The Google Pixel 9 devices aren’t on shelves, but once they are (hopefully you’ve placed a pre-order, there are great deals available), you’ll be able to use the feature out of the box.
Pixel 8 users won’t be able to use this because all the enhancing happens on-device and it seems like 8GB of RAM simply isn’t enough for the required model to do its work. That sucks, but it is certainly understandable.
