Android 14 has made it so that a handful of devices are capable of capturing images – rather than just video – in HDR, using a format called Ultra HDR. This doesn’t apply to other third-party apps that may make use of your device’s camera, like social media apps for instance. This may soon change, as the capability has been added via an API update.
As Android Authority explains, Ultra HDR images are saved as JPEG images, allowing just about any device to open them. The HDR bits of info are embedded in their metadata, so when devices without HDR screens open them, the SDR versions are displayed, while HDR-capable devices get the full, er, range of colours. This capability is available to dedicated camera apps via the Camera2 API, but not the CameraX API which other third-party apps like social media use.
The report points to the mention of the CameraX library release notes, which says that “initial support for Ultra HDR capture was added to CameraX with version 1.4.0-alpha05”. Though it remains to be seen when it will be widely available. According to the report, right now Google Chrome is just about the only app that fully supports it on both Android and desktop.
To be fair, as mentioned above, there is equally only a handful of devices that can capture and display images in HDR. Of course, there’s also the issue of each phone maker calling their equivalent to Ultra HDR a different thing. Notable examples are Pro XDR used by OPPO, OnePLus and realme, Ultra XDR by Nothing, or Super HDR by Samsung.
(Source: Android Authority)
