Google+ Photos caters to pixel peepers and HDR fans
Two new options expand what's possible with online photo editing on Google+. You can check focus with 100 percent zoom and give photos an HDR look.
- Shankland covered the tech industry for more than 25 years and was a science writer for five years before that. He has deep expertise in microprocessors, digital photography, computer hardware and software, internet standards, web technology, and more.
There's plenty of justified irritation that people pore over a photo's every pixel when from an aesthetic point of view, you'd be better off judging the whole work.
But if you're editing photos, it's definitely useful to zoom to 100 percent when checking things like focus or noise levels, which is why it's notable Google added that ability to its Google+ photo-editing app.
Google's Andre Meyer announced the feature Friday on Google+ -- along with one that's probably more controversial, a new HDR filter called HDR Scape.
HDR stands for high dynamic range, and it refers generally to the combination of multiple brighter and darker exposures of the same scene to better span its full range of tones. In principle, HDR photography can better match how the human eye can see something, or how the brain remembers it, but in practice, it's often used to add grungey, surreal special effects.
The Google+ option creates an HDR look from a single photo. Fortunately for the HDR haters, there are a range of sliders and presets that also offer more natural options.
The software uses Google's Native Client technology for running native apps in the browser. That means you'll have to use Chrome to try the software, because no other browser supports Native Client.
