yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Gnaius:
Okay, some observations after further tests: this mod does *fabulous* things with both the main sensor and the superwide. As lemonspeakerz and Thibale say: postprocessing issues have evaporated. It's just about perfect. (This is without enabling the Lib-Patcher.)

It does a good job at 2x with the main sensor as well.

An issue arises at 4x: things look terrible. Extreme noise reduction turns the jpeg into a water color. Now, unless the EXIF is lying to me, this mod is not using the telephoto lens: it's trying to produce 4x using the main lens and sensor — that would of course explain things. When I look at EXIF in Lightroom, or click on "info" in Google Photos, the lens identified in 1x, 2x, and 4x photos is always 6.81mm, which is the main lens. Superwide is properly identified as 2.35mm. But the periscope lens is nowhere to be seen. I believe it should be 19mm.

I understand this can be a problem in the stock app: unless lighting conditions are perfect, the phone will decide to use the main lens and sensor until you get to around 7x. I can understand why: the maximum aperture on the periscope lens is f3.5, as opposed to f1.8 on the main lens — significantly less light-gathering ability. But for those of us who don't care about a bit of noise, it would be VERY useful if the nice people working on the mod would attempt to give us an option to force the periscope to kick in at 4x.
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Gnaius:
Oh, and Thibale: that Tasker link isn't working for me. When I try to access it on the Pixel (as opposed to in Mac OS), I get "taskerserver.error.ExceptionUserNotAuthenticated."

I'm new to Tasker, by the way: for this function will I be required to root my phone?
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] spr33:
Are you saying you're leaving it 100% stock out of the box and only disabling the line in dev options?

Have you done side by side comparisons?
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Gnaius:
Okay, just to be completely precise: I've installed Gcam_8.3.252_V1c_MWP, and have "Lib-Patcher" set to "Off." Which is how it's set up when it's installed. In the Mod Settings this shows up as "Custom Libs: Default."

Yes, I did compare photos taken after I turned the Lib-Patcher on, and set some of the denoise parameters slightly less than default. Those results were vastly inferior. Note that Lib-Patcher offers a zillion possible combinations and permutations when it comes to noise reduction and sharpening — it's quite possible you could come up with something that's an improvement. But I'm very happy with the default balance.

Oh, and I just did further tests, comparing this mod with the stock Camera app that ships with the Pixel, and it's night and day. SO much better.

EDIT: This is true of the main sensor, but the more I look at results with the periscope lens, the less I'm convinced that the mod is helpful there — in fact, the results seem perhaps worse. I'll have to test this more.

But we really do need manual control over the periscope, so that we can get it to kick in at shorter focal lengths whenever desired. Currently the automatic switch is triggered not simply by lighting conditions and focal length, but also — more predictably — by distance from the object focused on. As you get closer to the subject, the more likely it is that the app will pick the main lens.
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Gnaius:
Okay, today's discoveries.

First, you can get excellent RAW processing out of Photoshop Express on the phone; just as good as I managed to do with Lightroom in Mac OS (although less parameters to fool around with, of course).

Second: both PS Express and Lightroom automatically apply lens corrections for distortion, which seem to be therefore *doubly* applied: the JPEG already corrects, and when you add the second correction, things get slightly curvy: what looks like a correction for barrel distortion on the edge and pincushion in the center (and I have no idea whether that's an accurate or even coherent description). Nothing too annoying, but not great. You can correct for either the edges or the center in LR, with a corresponding overcorrection for the other.

Third, the stock JPEG really does suck, and the camera mod thus far isn't quite the improvement I'd hoped for; you really do want to process RAW.

Fourth, the mod does an absolutely horrible, unfixable job with the telephoto sensor. If this is going to work, it seems it will have to apply different processing parameters to each of the sensors. I have no idea whether that's possible.

Okay, here's an image processed from a RAW file, via Lightroom and Silver Efex Pro. Don't despair: this is a really good camera. The quality of the noise is really nice; the natural bokeh on both the main and telephoto sensors is excellent, which may be a first for a phone camera (although you don't see that demonstrated here). Things just require more work than a quick snapshot. Oh, and this was shot with the periscope lens and the telephoto sensor; the results from the main sensor are even better, when it comes to noise and detail.
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Gnaius:
I put this on similar threads; it's important that as many people as possible make themselves heard. All of you concerned about the jpeg over-processing issue, please weigh in here, so that Google can see our complaints: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/208860802

The more people who post, the more likely the complaint will be noticed. (Apologies if it looks like spam; it's strategic.)
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Swingal:
I tried to tweak libpatcher on MWC cam. I used less denoise and less sharpening and was really pleased with the result. Also the Noir mode is just pure magic! Just comparision (hope its not compressed by upload). Complaint added 👍

I had an OnePlus 5, and the Gcam mod had possibility to have different lib patchers to each lens. So hoping for the best.
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] dex2grigg:
Max hitting that barrier on the last corner though 😓
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Gnaius:
What exactly are we looking at here? The second one has less processing, and noir mode applied? There's definitely more detail in the surface of the lid, and the HDR seems to have been toned down: it's not uniformly bright across the frame.

What were your precise settings?
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Swingal:
Right, less saturated, less HDR. Settings attached, its my 2nd attempt. 1 one was too color noisy in low light but this one looks better. But the settings are attached. Also, used MWP_xHDR custom lib from Mod Settings.

The Noir mode makes black/white photos and some magic and they look beautiful.

//edit: The first two samples were not an good test i know, but wanted to test low light denoise as my first lib was very bad at low light. This one seems to do better.
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] superman25:
Thanks looks better for me....little faster and definitely more options....
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Gnaius:
Thanks for this! I guess I now have to start experimenting with the Noir mode, which I knew nothing about. (I've always done my black and white processing in post, with Silver Efex Pro — it will be interesting to compare results.)

I must confess that the last part of your post is a bit opaque.
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] quark-lepton:
That's not really correct, I explained it here: https://xdaforums.com/t/gcam-camera-px-for-google-pixel-1-2-3-3a-4.3875663/post-85816579

Whenever the camera app chooses 4x digital zoom, the results are nearly always worse than the periscope results, when you force the periscope camera. The 4x digital zoom is only better, when the periscope camera can't focus or in complete darkness without long exposures.

I don't have the Pixel 6 Pro anymore because I have returned it due to multiple camera issues (including the super aggressive luminance noise reduction and color noise reduction), in some cases even the raw files have terrible artifacts.

To Google's camera engineers: Pixel 6 suffers from aggressive and patchy noise reduction - Google Pixel Community
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Gnaius:
Fascinating. Yeah, that's far more rigorous than my simple conjecture. Interesting what you say about the light-gathering capability; why does that not apply when using longer lenses on larger digital cameras? (Or does it, in some way that I don't understand?) I ask this at risk of taking this thread way off-topic...
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] lemonspeakerz:
Huh? I'm lost
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] quark-lepton:
The sensor of the periscope camera captures less light per time than the sensor of the main camera, but the sensor of the periscope camera captures more light per time per angle (more light per time from an object) than the main camera.

But more light per object doesn't always mean less noise per object. The sensor can't measure the amount of light 100% correctly, this leads to noise (read noise) and is noticeable in bad light conditions and when the light is distributed over too many pixels. A tele lens leads to far more pixels per object than a wide angle lens.

A 24mm f/1.85 lens captures more light per time from an object than the 6.81mm f/1.85 lens of the Pixel 6 because 24/1.85 is larger than 6.81/1.85. The effective diameter of the lens is larger.
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Swingal:
Just some photos from Lib testing ... hopefully next week Ill be confident to post here the settings. :giggle:

I would be gratefull if you let know the google devs, that we would like to update postprocessing of stock cam to be more up to date witch curent lenses. Right here:

To Google's camera engineers: Pixel 6 suffers from aggressive and patchy noise reduction - Google Pixel Community

and also here:

https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/208860802

https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/208842971

Thank you
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] OPOmaniac:
OK so my phone just DIED because of this modded Gcam. I donwloaded latest Gcam mentioned here above and then went to settings - developer settings - and tried to turn off "segmenter_use_darwinn_tpu_delegate" so I can use also front camera. Once i unticked that, my phone freezed, screen turned to black and its technically dead.

I cannot turn it on. If I put charger, nothing shows up, just black unresponsive screen. Holding power button for 30 sec - nothing, holding power button + volume up also did not help. Its completely unresponsive.

Any help please?? I am from Czech republic, bought it from Google Germany. Warranty is technically not possible, I do not know how to do it since I do not live in Germany.
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Gnaius:
Nice work. Numbers 2 and 5 are just about perfect, to my mind. The others are a bit soft, but would probably sharpen up nicely in post. (A bit soft is just fine, as far as I'm concerned.) Which lens/sensor did you use for each picture? Numbers 3 and 4 look to be perhaps ultrawide? Is number 2 with the periscope lens?
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Swingal:
1,2,3 and 5 with periscope, 4 ultrawide. They are little bit soft because of dehaze probably. Need to tweak it a little bit more, but far better than stock. Ill test/tweak it until friday and post the settings and difference 👍
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Gnaius:
It would be helpful if you could test your best setting with at least one shot on each of the three lenses/sensors. If we can find parameters that work nicely on all three, we're golden. (The one quick test I did was fine on the main sensor, but miserable on the periscope.)

Oh, and which precise version of the mod are you using?
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Swingal:
Yes, was there too. Main lens was very good, tried the other two and really bad. Especially in low light. I am using latest MWC.

MWP GCam APKs - Google Camera Port

Modified Google Camera app by MWP.

www.celsoazevedo.com

//edit, some zoooomed in samples from telephoto and ultrawide cam (the 3rd one is ultra wide)
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Gnaius:
Okay, clearly the bottom one in each double image is vastly superior. What's the difference between top and bottom?
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Swingal:
The top ones are stock cam, the botom ones is MWP Gcam with tweaked Lib.
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Gnaius:
Right. I just downloaded this — I've been on the previous version. Couple things: I can't seem to access the Noir thing. I turned on the toggle in Mod settings, but it's not showing up. Another, more important issue: if I turn HDR+ to "off", it won't let me shoot RAW files -- it automatically reverts to JPEG only.
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Swingal:
Enable Noir in - Mod Settings -> Valley Noir (switch and toggle). Didnt test the raw files tho.
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Gnaius:
Okay, I got Valley Noir to work, but I can't get it to show the toggle in the viewfinder. I also can't get it to show the Lib Patcher toggle in the viewfinder. (Although I can turn both of these on and off in the menu.)

UPDATE: I restarted the app, and the Noir toggle now shows. The Lib Patcher toggle doesn't. (Not that I really need that.)
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Gnaius:
I've been playing with the Lib Patcher. I was quite wrong: untweaked, the app is no better than the stock app — in fact, precisely the same, as far as I can determine. Which is to say: horrible. But... I've managed to get brilliant results, dialing a few parameters down. New settings:

Sharpness (0.25)

Luma (-0.5)

Chroma (-0.25)

Luma Denoise (0) — which is probably default, if 0 is the same as OFF

Tone Curve: "Shadows (Lower Curve Half)" and "Highlights (Upper Curve Half)" both set to 0.

This is a detail; click on it to zoom to 100%. One the left is with the Lib Patcher off; on the right is with it on. I sharpened the patched example a bit in Lightroom, and the noise profile is now remarkably close to the RAW file. ISO 500.

I can certainly live with this. And it works equally well on the periscope lens/sensor. (The ultrawide maybe not so much: with the Lib Patcher set like this you get very noisy photos, even at low ISOs, and the noise shows banding. Have to do some more experiments there.)
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Mikulec:
Try to hold the power button for couple of seconds (more then 20) and see if something happens.
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Gnaius:
The latest experiment. I'm *really* happy with this camera now. With these settings, I get JPEGs that are almost precisely the same, in terms of noise and sharpness, as the DNG files. On all three sensors! (Haven't tested the front camera.) And I've compared the main sensor results to my modified 3XL, which I've been happy with for years: I can cheerfully report that the new, larger sensor does just what it's supposed to: lowers noise at equivalent ISO. The results are very close at low ISOs, although there's no question that the 6 Pro is a subtle improvement. But that's for ordinary light levels. When I compare at very high ISOs (eg. in the range of 2800, without using Night Sight), the results aren't close at all: the 6 Pro blows the 3XL out of the water. And when you do use Night Sight, the results are similar: much more noise on the 3XL.

I'm not sure I'm going to fiddle around with these setting any more, unless people have specific recommendations; there isn't much point, given that I now have JPEGs that are as useful as the DNG files. To turn the DNG into almost the same image, all I have to do is pump saturation and vibrance (significantly!) in Lightroom, and add a touch of clarity. The DNG still has the distortion issue, and doesn't seem to offer a significant increase in exposure latitude (surprisingly enough — although I haven't experimented with extremes). So I expect I'll shoot only JPEGs from now on. Here's what I've come up with:

GCam 8.3.252 | Mod (ver : 1d) by MWP

Tone Curve: OFF

Everything on the Lib Patcher is set to "OFF (Default as lib)", except the following:

Sharpness: 0.25

Luma: 0.5

Chroma: 0.3125

This in fact gives me an image that's sharper, OOC, than the 3XL, which requires more sharpening in Lightroom to match it. And the noise profile is still marginally better in daylight, and *vastly* better in low light.

Folks, this is a good camera. The ultrawide sensor is merely okay (but we knew that); the main and telephoto lens/sensor combinations are probably as good as you'll see on a smartphone.
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] cd993:
Appreciate you taking the time to test and post back your settings!

Curious.... For my taste, I seem to like to add a Google Photos edit of perhaps +15-20% 'pop' effect. Which gcam setting do you feel would best make this enhancement? Would be great for shots to be snapped with that addition. Mindful the pop seems to make blacks blacker, things a bit sharper along with perhaps other aspects.
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Gnaius:
Well, I haven't fooled around with "pop" on Google Photos, but if it's similar to the effect in other apps, I imagine the thing to do would be to experiment with the Clarity parameter on GCam. Try boosting it, and seeing what happens. It should serve, yes, to make blacks blacker. If it doesn't (and that's what you want), you can experiment with Tone Curve, to lower the Shadows Point, or to darken shadows via "Shadows (Lower Curve Half)". I have no idea whether that last thing will do much: I tried to lessen the HDR effect by changing the Lower Curve Half, and it didn't seem to make any difference.

Alternately, you can just continue to do this in post, which may give you better results anyway. Snapseed is particularly great for quick-and-dirty adjustments of this sort. Examine the files closely — if you have GCam do the adjustment, you may find that it clips shadows: something that happens a lot with the stock GCam overprocessing.
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] cd993:
Thanks, will give this a try sometime soon!

I don't suppose this gcam version offers any other features over stock, given our Pixel phones have them all right?!
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Gnaius:
I haven't looked into it, but I believe it gives you more options with astrophotography? Not sure. It does, unfortunately, remove a feature, although one I doubt I'd use much: the Motion effects (Action pan and Long exposure). And if you do want these, you can always just launch the stock app, which remains on your phone.
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Gnaius:
New observation: RAW files on this phone are simply not as good as properly tuned JPEGs. They introduce artifacts along straight edges of radically contrasting areas: say, the edge of a black box on a white background. My suspicion is that this is because of the overcorrection of lens distortion, but I can't be sure. I'm glad the JPEG situation can be remedied.

(Tangentially, if you don't mind having to sharpen more aggressively in post, I now think the best results are with Sharpening set fully to 0. Although 0.25 will get you better results straight out of the phone.)
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Swingal:
My settings:

Tone Curve

Shadows Point: 0.33

Highlights Point: 0.33

Shadows: -2

Highlights: 3

Custom Lib: MWP_xHDR

Sharpness: 1.0 Default (found out it doesnt do much, or something at all)

Soft Sharp: 0.375 (this is probably main sharpening)

Saturation: 0.875 (I like less saturated photos a bit)

Dehazed: 1.0 Default

Clarity: 0.875 (adjust as you wish)

Luma: 1.0 Default

Luma Denoise: 2.0

Chroma: 1.0 Default

Chroma Denoise: 2.0

Spatial: 1.0

Spatial Denoise: 2.0

Denoise: 4.0 (Does most of denoising)

Temporal Binning: 2.0 Default

HDR Intensity: 1.0 Default

HDR minus: -1

HDR Plus 8.5

Vignette OFF OFF

Definetly can be improved even more.
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Gnaius:
Thanks! Are these cropped so that they zoom to 100% when you click on them?
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Swingal:
They should be, I downloaded them from google photos, but the resolution and file size is matching so I asume they are original. I am adding 1:1 comparision with stock camera from my testing (not all were the final lib).
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Gnaius:
Okay, I input your settings and took the same photos that I'd taken with mine. (I use a few views of my apartment interior as test shots.) When I adjusted them so that the sharpness was equal, they were surprisingly similar when it came to the main lens/sensor: same amount of detail; a touch more luma noise in yours when you look at the shadow areas. The only place where yours comes up short is chroma noise; it's quite visible in certain patches of uniform color. When it comes to the ultrawide, again your settings introduce a bit more luma noise in the shadows, but they're close. With the periscope, however, you get a lot of luma noise, and less detail. It's odd how these settings affect different lens/sensor combinations.

Also note that I sharpen a fair bit more than you do. If you want to leave the photos a bit soft, they really do look almost the same. (But I suspect you'll want to sharpen more than this for most purposes.) My default settings are in fact a fair bit sharper than yours.
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] quark-lepton:
Does the modded app actually offer a color temperature slider? That's the most important camera feature of the Pixel 6 Pro.
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Gnaius:
It doesn't, yet. I expect they'll unlock that soon. If it's crucial to you, then you'll have to stay with the stock app. But, frankly, I think you're *much* better off adjusting the WB in post, given how much you gain with regard to sharpening and noise reduction. Color can be fixed. Oversharpening and denoise can't.
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] quark-lepton:
You can't adjust the white balance of a jpg afterwards, if the white balance is very wrong. Adjusting the white balance of a jpg afterwards can lead to terrible colors. Furthermore, it's important to choose the correct white balance because you won't be able to remember the correct white balance afterwards.
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Gnaius:
I rarely find that the white balance is so far off that it's uncorrectable. And remembering the original balance is less important than making it look right. (Often the original balance is unnatural, because of lighting conditions.)

At any rate, it's worth trying the mod. You don't have to uninstall the stock app. (In fact, you can't.) Take the same picture with both, and compare.
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] quark-lepton:
I have a very different opinion. In my opinion, a photo should look natural. It shouldn't look how you think it looked. And if one wants to choose a very different white balance due to artistic reasons, it doesn't always work well when you adjust the white balance of a jpg afterwards. It's also extremely cumbersome, if you take hundred photos in the same room and need to edit 100 raw files afterwards only because the camera hasn't chosen the correct white balance..
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Swingal:
Trying your settings and I find them to be better, more sharp. Will test more during the week but looks very good. 👍
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Gnaius:
"Natural" is not quite as objective as people suggest. What's "natural" under incandescent lights? A warm white? A neutral white? Your eyes in fact see a very warm white, and it generally looks far too yellow in a supposedly accurate photograph. How you think that something looks is in fact all that you really have, even while you're looking at that thing.

Most professional photographers shoot RAW, and do not know precisely how the white balance will appear when the image is opened in Lightroom or Photoshop. Ideally, yes, it will be close to how they imagine it looked or should look; but *no* decisions made while the photograph is taken will register in the RAW file. The final balance is a result of decisions made while processing it.
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Izy:
btw @Gnaius alot of grain in low lighting although details are preserved it looks off when sooner slightly in

This was with your preset
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Gnaius:
What was the ISO? That seems about right, if the ISO was very high.
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Izy:
190 for that specific image
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Gnaius:
This is what you can get with low ISO. Click on it to zoom to 100%. There is absolutely no way you can get this kind of detail with the stock app. (And this is the periscope lens/sensor, at 4x — it's even better on the main sensor.)
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Gnaius:
Hm. That's pretty noisy; this was the main sensor? I see that kind of noise in the shadows with the ultrawide.
[Google Pixel 6 Pro] Izy:
Yeah main sensor the others which wasn't as bad as this one were about 300.