Google Messages quietly added support for Ultra HDR images in RCS Chats
Google Messages is the newest app to take advantage of ultra HDR images and make the messaging experience a lot better for people who use RCS...
Once a picture is taken and compressed into a jpeg (or whatever) why is there a need for any extra support beyond "sending an image"?
Ultra HDR is a new image format available with Android 14 on supported devices & camera. Basically it's a JPEG image but some additional data added to it when captured on supported devices. With ultra HDR, images can have darker shadows and brighter highlights.
I thought the same thing at first, but it sounds like it is just that you can now view the "Ultra HDR"-ness within the app.
Also,
Google Messages doesn't strip the gain map metadata from images
Yeah I guess it probably strips unknown data segments from the file for security and privacy, and it would have a whitelist of segment types it will keep
And of course the ability to display them with ultra HDR
Well, it does spell out the difference of Ultra HDR. However, you asked "need?" There is absolutely no need (in my opinion) of better pictures, but I also rarely take or view them so I might not be the best judge.
Obviously it's not exactly a 1:1 comparison, but think of the image having HDR metadata like an HDR YouTube video. Even though it's compressed, it could still contain HDR attributes like 10-bit color or a certain screen brightness when viewing the specific images.
Ultra — for when Super Turbo wasn’t good enough.
Neat tech though. Adoption is going to be interesting.
What's an ultra hdr image? Avif? Jxl?
The short version is that there are two images and sidecar/xmp file sandwiched into one file. First is the standard dynamic range image, what you'd expect to see from a jpeg. Second is the gain map, an image whose contents include details outside of SDR. The sidecar/xmp file has instructions on how to blend the two images together to create a consistent HDR image across displays.
So its HDR-ish enough for the average person. I like this solution, especially after seeing the hellscape that is DSLR raw format support.
Looks like google doesn't introduce a new file ending / format. You'll never know if you've got a normal jpg or that hdr thingy. I wonder why they do that intermediate step to avif.
Maybe because they are not yet ready and confident that avif may replace jpg right now.aybe it's the first step towards avif.
