Google Photos now enables complex edits while maintaining Ultra HDR quality on Pixel 8

Google Photos now allows users to make complex image edits, like Magic Eraser and Photo Unblur, while maintaining Ultra HDR quality on Pixel devices. Previously, these types of edits would result in a new copy of the image being created in SDR quality due to how the metadata associated with Ultra HDR increases the complexity of editing operations. Gain Map is log-encoded alongside an SDR image, showing how much each pixel should be brightened for HDR. Since ML-powered tools expect and produce SDR images, Google developed a new reconstruction model that predicts missing Gain Maps. It's under 1MB, runs at interactive speeds on mobile, and is available on Pixel 8 devices.