After Google teased and “unveiled” Zoom Enhance a whole year ago, the feature is finally here for real - on my Pixel 8 Pro, and of course, on the brand new Pixel 9 series.
Zoom Enhance is a Pixel camera trick you apply after taking a photo, or to an existing photo taken with any camera. It does exactly what the name suggests, which is to upscale your pixelated photo and make it look sharper.
In my experience, the word to pay attention to here is “pixelated” and not necessarily “blurry” photos. But let’s dive in and take a look at the two sample images I’ve Zoom Enhance-ed for this experiment…
I tried Google’s long-awaited “Zoom Enhance” trick for upscaling pixelated photos - was it worth the one-year-long wait?
Before trying out Zoom Enhance, I was curious to see how much of a difference it could actually make. But instead of taking new photos, I found two old pictures from my gallery and tried enhancing different portions of the images to see if I could restore some detail. I’d imagine many people would be looking to do the same with some of their old snaps.
And the results are a mixed bag. As you can tell by the enhanced crops from the first image, Google’s upscaling algorithm is pretty good at sharpening text, which includes large letters.
However, as seen in the “Canal house” crop, text that’s already too tiny, or too bright, might end up looking even less legible after applying Zoom Enhance, which gives off a painting-like effect to some images.
That being said, what’s way more impressive is how Zoom Enhance deals with common textures like bricks, wood, etc. As you can see in the wall/roof/window crops, the algorithm is pretty good at adding texture where it doesn’t exist.
The Pixel’s Zoom Enhance works best with simple shapes and textures
Moving on to the second image, the hit-and-miss tendency with enhancing text continues. The blue plantholder and the plant look realistic but the text could be much better rendered.
The algorithm did a very good job with the “Lazy days” crop, which was totally pixelated before. However, the signs on the brickwall remained just as hard to read.
With the lamp crop, the lamp itself, the brick wall, and tree branches are nicely sharpened, and maybe even a tad oversharpened.
For the record, I wouldn’t necessarily share any of the image crops online, but if the point was to get a more clear view of the lamp (for whatever reason), I guess Zoom Enhance gets the job done.
Don’t be fooled - Google’s “Zoom Enhance” and other “upscaling” AI don’t really make your photos “more detailed” - they add “fake” detail instead
You can tell that Zoom Enhance isn’t optimized for photos of people, and more specifically, faces.
It does a much better job at upscaling objects with simple shapes.
Moving on to what Zoom Enhance is REALLY not meant to do, perhaps the most interesting example I’ve got here is the one with the three strangers walking by the cafe.
It perfectly illustrates what “Zoom Enhance” is meant to be used for, which is simple shapes and objects with distinct features, like (some) text or most architectural detail.
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As you can see, it does a really good job at making the umbrella, bench, and plant in the image crop far clearer than before.
However, when it comes to human faces, the results are far less impressive. It pretty much butchers the ladies’ hair, and the gentleman’s… non-hair. They look like they belong in an oil painting.
I've got a hunch that the blurred human faces aren’t simply due to Google’s inability to make pixelated human faces look realistic. It must be another privacy restriction similar to the one, which stops you from using the Magic Editor to alter human faces/bodies.
Zoom Enhance is imperfect - it adds “fake” detail to your pixelated photos; it’s not great in low-light; doesn’t like people; and it’s not coming to the vanilla Pixel 8 or Pixel 9
It’s important to note that Zoom Enhance doesn’t really “bring back” detail in your photos. In fact, the algorithm simply interprets whatever it sees as “that thing”, and makes it look like it belongs in the picture.
On top of that, the feature seems to be specifically optimized for dealing with very pixelated image crops, which is why it does a much better job at upscaling tiny portions of a larger image - rather than a whole photo. In other words, it’s important to know what to use Zoom Enhance for, which you learn pretty quickly after giving it a spin.
Another limitation is how Zoom Enhance performs in low-light conditions. Night shots, which are typically grainier and have less detail to begin with, don’t benefit from Zoom Enhance nearly as much.
And I can’t skip mentioning the added inconvenience of having to apply Zoom Enhance manually after taking the picture. The process takes 5-10 seconds to work depending on the size of the image portion you’ve chosen to enhance.
The only reason I bring this up is because Chinese flagships like the Oppo Find X7 Ultra and Xiaomi 14 Ultra perform similar AI upscaling tricks in real-time, and manage to produce really convincing 30-60x zoom photos as you take them.
Zoom Enhance requires that extra step, which isn’t a huge deal, but it does make the process a bit less seamless.
But perhaps the biggest letdown is that “Zoom Enhance” isn’t coming to the smaller Pixel 8 and Pixel 9 models, which (apparently) don’t have enough RAM to run the feature. The vanilla Pixel 8 has 8GB of RAM; the Pixel 8 Pro and Pixel 9 have 12GB, and the Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro Fold have a whopping 16GB of RAM.
“Zoom Enhance” is a nice trick for upscaling pixelated photos but Google, Samsung, and Apple need to do better if they want to compete with China’s best zoom-ers
The sharpest photo of the freshly-leaked
/www.phonearena.com/pixel-9a-release-date-price-features-news" class="internal" rel="">Pixel 9a - brought to you by Google’s new Zoom Enhance algorithm.
Hilariously, Google’s “Zoom Enhance” will make blurry photos of leaked Google phones sharper now. Talk about self-sabotaging.
In the end, the long-awaited “Zoom Enhance” trick is a nice addition to the already smart Pixel camera. So, I guess the wait was worth it.
That being said, as I’ve demonstrated, Zoom Enhance is far from “magical” when it comes to dealing with tiny text, images with less contrast, low-light snaps, and photos of people. So, Google has some more work to do there. Not to mention, Pixel 8 and Pixel 9 users don’t get this feature in the first place.
Speaking of doing more, I’d love to see Google, Samsung and (especially) Apple finally catch up to major Chinese phone-makers in terms of real-time AI zoom enhancements in the 20-60x zoom range.
Phones like the Oppo Find X7 Pro, Xiaomi 14 Ultra, and Vivo X100 Ultra are already better than the Galaxy S24 Ultra, Pixel 8 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max in 20-60x zoom, which means the upgraded version of the best Chinese flagships will set the bar even higher.
In the meantime, I guess I’ll continue playing around with Zoom Enhance on my Pixel - it’s actually kinda fun. In fact, I wouldn’t mind having a similar feature on my iPhone.
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Martin, a tech journalist at PhoneArena, brings a unique blend of humor and insight to his work. His fascination with smartphones began with a Galaxy Young and evolved through a series of trades and upgrades, making him a self-proclaimed smartphone nerd. Martin's content often combines current analysis of market trends with historical references and future predictions. Whether it's a deep dive into technical issues or a first-person commentary on industry events, Martin's articles are designed to inform and engage. His critical perspective is driven by genuine curiosity and a desire to keep readers informed, not by any corporate sponsorship.
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