/https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5fad5bf7f1b90890d9dfa549/0x0.jpg "Google quality warning for millions of Google Photos users")
Having recently withdrawn its best feature, Google Photos is now trying to convince us that it was not good in the first place and alerted users to the consequences.
Google Photos logo
In a recent subscriber email, the Google Photos team described new premium editing features available exclusively to their paying Google One customers. However, the email also contains a somewhat surprising section that encourages users to use more of your storage quota by switching from high quality uploads to original quality or risking seemingly dire consequences
According to the email, “Original quality photos preserve most details and allow you to enlarge, crop and print photos with less pixelation”. While this statement is objectively true, it is at odds with what Google has told us in the past about its high-quality option.
At its launch in 2015, Google Photos creator Anil Sabharwal promised that high-quality uploads offered “nearly identical visual quality” compared to his original photos.
But now Google wants us to see a seemingly huge difference in quality between the two configurations and to be willing to pay more for it. It seems that “Original Quality” is now something that we should all be willing to pay more for.
Here is the image that 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 as much,
So, do the two quality settings offer a visual quality almost identical to that originally promised or do the high quality images really look like a pixelated mess above when compared to the originals? Should you really switch to the original quality, as Google suggests, and pay more for the additional storage you will need?
High quality images are restricted to 16 megapixels for photos or 1080p resolution for video and are free to store in the service until June 2021. Original quality uploads, on the other hand, come in any resolution set for your camera, which many Larger images can sometimes produce files that exceed the 16 megapixel / 1080p limit. These larger files consume the user’s storage quota and require a Google One storage plan to be purchased once the initial 15 GB of free storage is exhausted.
If you’re worried about losing quality if you don’t switch to Original Quality, don’t worry. It is important to emphasize that the example image from Google is not absolutely representative of the difference that you will actually see between the two quality settings. Most people are unlikely to even notice the difference.
On the other hand, cameras have come a long way since 2015 and if you made the decision to maintain high quality at that time, you may want to reconsider this option for a moment if you have a new phone with much higher specifications that you are really using.
If, for example, you started recording a lot of videos in 4K, or even in 8K, you may want to put a plan in place to preserve them in their original quality. With the photos, it is a little different: the iPhone 12 Pro Max, for example, comes with a main sensor of 12 megapixels that fits the limit of 16 megapixels. However, if your phone offers a high-resolution option, such as a 108-megapixel mode, the story is different.
Of course, think about your quality options, but don’t be fooled by Google’s pixelated bird alert. You will probably be fine with High Quality.
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