Which Upload Size Is Best for Google
Google Photos has long offered i of the all-time deals in all of photo storage: it'll support your entire library for costless, so long equally it tin compress the images a bit. But every bit of tomorrow, June 1st, that deal goes abroad, and you're now eating through Google storage (which y'all may have to pay for) whether your images are compressed or not.
With the change looming, I've been wondering how bad Google's compression actually is. Does the pinch exit my photos in "High Quality," as Google has claimed for years? Or does the compression degrade my photos enough to make information technology worth using more storage by switching over to "Original Quality" backups?
I ran some quick tests this forenoon to find out. I took some photos and videos from my Pixel v (one of a few phones that volition continue to get free compressed storage) and a photo from my Fuji X-T30 and uploaded them to two separate Google Photos accounts, one with compression turned on and 1 that maintained original quality.
The results were mixed. For photos, the compressed versions were oft indistinguishable from their uncompressed counterparts. But once you're losing resolution, the pinch actually starts to show.
Here's what I found across a handful of tests. You can click the images to view them at a larger size.
I can't find a departure in this photo of my cat
Here'south a photo I took recently of my cat, Pretzel. I zoomed in on his hair, his eyes, and the books in the background, and I can't find a difference. The photo, taken on a Pixel 5, was originally iii.4MB merely was compressed downwards to 1.5MB.
This ultrawide photo looks basically the same
I took this picture on Yale'south campus last weekend with the Pixel v's ultrawide photographic camera. Both versions look great while in total screen on my computer. You could probably make an argument about whether in that location's some more than noises effectually the edges of the leaves in the compressed version, but I'm by and large of the mindset that if you have to search for image issues, they don't really matter.
The space saving isn't very substantial here: Google's pinch takes the file size from seven.3MB to 5.7MB.
The image size shrinks dramatically from my mirrorless camera
Hither'southward a photo I took this morning of Pretzel on my Fuji 10-T30. I zoomed in on his confront, and couldn't notice a divergence even when both were diddled upwards equally large equally Google Photos could make them.
At first, information technology seemed like this was a state of affairs where Google Photos' compression won out: the file size shrank from 12MB to merely 662KB, and the images look practically identical.
But there's ane very notable difference. Google caps photo resolution at xvi megapixels, which shrank the photo significantly from the original 26 megapixel file my photographic camera saved. Here'due south a zoomed-in ingather showing how the detail starts to disappear as blocky noise comes in:
Now look, I don't know that I need all 26 megapixels of this image at this point in time. But if I ever wanted to print this photo in a larger format, crop it downwardly the road, or otherwise make changes to it, those actress pixels would be a huge advantage to have retained.
Video compression is just bad
There's nothing inherently wrong with 1080p video, but there is something incorrect with the style Google processes it. And unfortunately, if you use Google's compression, all your videos will exist compressed at 1080p.
When that happens, everything becomes smudgy, details just vanish, and some colors even lose their pop. It's a really significant downgrade in terms of quality. I'1000 non able to embed a Google Photos video here, and so I included a screenshot comparison to a higher place. I think you can see almost of the differences, although it's much clearer how blurry text becomes at larger sizes.
I originally recorded this video in 4K back on my Pixel 5 back in February. It looks nice enough on my not-4K computer screen. Street signs, faces, and the falling snow all look sharp. But the compressed version is kind of a mess — information technology looks similar I recorded information technology with a layer of grease on my camera lens.
The loss (or savings) of data is a big i here: it falls from 55MB for this 10 second prune to just 6MB. No wonder it looks and so much worse.
The compression makes a divergence... sometimes
I nonetheless came abroad mostly impressed by the quality maintained after Google'due south compression. For photos, the result can be nearly indistinguishable and so long equally the original file is under 16 megapixels. But for videos, at that place'south no question that uncompressed is the way to go. It'south as well bad that Google doesn't let you prepare different options for photos and videos.
The real drawback is that compressing your photos doesn't always salvage a ton of space. That actress space definitely adds upward as you push thousands of new photos into the cloud each year. But if you're going to have to pay anyway, it might exist worth maintaining your photos — and especially your videos — at their total quality, specially if you're uploading them in higher resolutions.
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Source: https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/31/22461871/google-photos-compression-comparison-storage
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