Samsung’s recent Galaxy S24 series is the first to support the capture and display of Ultra HDR photos on social media platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat. However, according to a new report, similar functionality may soon become available to other Android devices.
January 28 update at the bottom of this story: Instagram HDR photos can be viewed in HDR without a Galaxy S24 smartphone. (Article originally posted January 25.)
As prominent Android expert Mishaal Rahman recently discovered, Google is making it easier for Android apps to shoot Ultra HDR photos by adding Ultra HDR image capture support to the CameraX API. This update could allow other smartphones to support the feature on social media platforms without a heavy investment in software development.
Ultra HDR photography is a game-changing upgrade made available with Android 14. For the first time, it allows Android devices to capture and display photos using the full range of colors and brightness levels that the hardware can provide while maintaining compatibility with standard JPEG files.
Announced in 2019, CameraX is a software library allowing developers to access Google’s advanced camera features with just a couple of lines of code. This library gives “in-app” cameras easy access to features such as Night Sight, Portrait Mode, and soon Ultra HDR, which would otherwise be available only when using a smartphone’s native camera app.
Google created CameraX after discovering that over 70% of all camera usage occurred on developer-made apps rather than the device’s built-in camera app. Shooting from inside popular third-party apps would often result in reduced picture quality and missing camera features without help from the CameraX API.
However, not all devices and apps use Google’s Camera APIs, so support for advanced camera features will continue to rely on support from individual manufacturers and developers.
Update: January 26
A subsequent report, also from Rahman, reveals that OnePlus’s newly launched OnePlus 12 smartphone will be the first from the company to support Google’s CameraX and Camera2 vendor extensions.
Currently, the OnePlus 12 uses Google’s extensions to provide Bokeh and Night modes on the primary rear camera and Night mode for the selfie camera. While there’s no guarantee that the new Ultra HDR CameraX extension will also be implemented, the company’s support of CameraX paves the way for support of this feature on third-party apps in the near future.
If you want to check your own Android device for CameraX and Camera2 support, you can use the CameraX info app to receive a full breakdown of supported features. You can also use this app to browse a database of results captured from various different Android devices, although the interface is somewhat clunky.
Update: January 28:
You can now view Ultra HDR photos on Instagram without a Samsung Galaxy S24 device.
Uploading HDR photos is still restricted to the Galaxy S24 range, but you can still view them in full HDR glory using a compatible desktop browser. For example, I’ve successfully used Chrome on my Windows 11 desktop PC attached to an HDR-capable monitor.
If your computer and browser are capable of displaying Ultra HDR photos in HDR, then you should see any Instagram photos shot in “Super HDR” on a Samsung Galaxy S24-series smartphone in all their HDR glory.
Here’s an example Super HDR Instagram post from tech YouTuber Marks Tech,
If HDR display is working correctly on your system, you should see significantly higher brightness in the brightest portions of each photo. You can see the difference more clearly if you view the images side-by-side in a browser that doesn’t support Ultra HDR photo display, such as Firefox. Downloading a Super HDR Instagram photo with a browser also results in a JPEG file with the necessary HDR gain map intact.
Unfortunately, you can’t yet upload Ultra HDR images using a desktop browser even if you switch to the mobile site. The image will preview in HDR mode but becomes SDR once posted to Instagram.
With Any luck Instagram will soon add support for Ultra HDR photo display in Android and iOS apps too. One reason for the delay, other than an exclusive agreement with Samsung, is the fact the HDR experience may need to be calibrated on a range of different smartphone displays before rolling it out to millions of users.
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