Snapdragon supports Android 14’s new Ultra HDR format for photo capture
Snapdragon-powered smartphones pack professional quality cameras with breakthrough innovations you won’t find anywhere else. Whether you’re snapping memories of your kid’s birthday party or capturing the extraordinary views from your latest hike, Snapdragon mobile platforms are designed to ensure that professional camera quality is built right into your smartphone.
A track record for turning heads
Snapdragon platforms are constantly at the helm of smartphone innovations, ensuring stunning professional-quality photos and videos. When it comes to high dynamic range (HDR) video capture:
- Snapdragon 845 was the first mobile Image Signal Processor (ISP) to feature 4K HDR video capture.
- Snapdragon 855 added support for the HDR10+ format.
- Snapdragon 865 featured the world’s first ISP to feature Dolby Vision for video capture.
- Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 featured the first ISP for smartphones capable of 8K HDR video capture.
Snapdragon also leads the pack when it comes to capturing HDR photos. In fact, Snapdragon 888 was the first to feature High Efficiency Image Format (HEIF) photo capture in 10-bit color depth, which packs every photo with over 1 billion shades of color. You can find 10-bit HEIF photo capture on the OnePlus 11 and Oppo Find X3.
The Samsung Galaxy S23 leverages the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2’s massive 18-bit ISP to enhance photo capture in RAW. And when you have access to uncompressed and unprocessed RAW photos in 16-bit color depth, your smartphone has the ability to take your photos to their highest potential. Snapdragon enables endless capabilities when it comes to your photo library; from RAW to HEIF and JPEG, and even to those formats that are still on the horizon.
At Google I/O 2023, Android introduced a new photo format for capturing images: Ultra HDR. This photo format, coming to Android 14, will allow image photos to be captured in the backwards-compatible JPEG format, but offer dynamic range beyond 8-bits so cameras can capture photos with even more stunning detail in shadows and highlights.
Snapdragon powers Ultra HDR photo capture
10-bit HDR videos have been available for a while on mobile, but 10-bit HDR snapshots are relatively new in the everyday images captured on mobile phones. The Ultra HDR file contains a standard 8-bit (standard dynamic range, or SDR) JPEG-compressed base image concatenated to another smaller resolution JPEG carrying a gain map, and the bundled metadata used for HDR reconstruction.
Ultra HDR images can be decoded in a spectrum of different renditions from fully SDR to fully HDR; the final rendering is adaptive and depends on the original intent of the content producer, display capabilities and the display conditions. This gives the best possible viewing experience of the image to users. Furthermore, the format is completely backwards compatible with existing apps, even if they are not aware of HDR capabilities in the file, and simply can be interpreted as an SDR JPEG file in that case.
Qualcomm Technologies’ camera ISP team has been working with the Android team to leverage Snapdragon's 18-bit ISP for the Ultra HDR format. Thanks to this collaboration, Snapdragon is one of the world’s first platforms to support Ultra HDR photo capture — the ability to shoot photos loaded with incredible detail both in shadows and brighter highlights. Stay tuned for future smartphones powered by Snapdragon and Android 14 to feature Ultra HDR format photo capture and many more camera innovations.
