[Update: Rolling out in MIUI beta] Xiaomi is testing a new “sky replacement” feature in MIUI Gallery for its upcoming smartphones

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Update (5/17/19 @ 2:32 PM ET): The “sky replacement” feature is now rolling out in the last MIUI Beta.

Xiaomi is preparing to launch a couple of new Android smartphones. While it is a given that these smartphones will feature good hardware, Xiaomi will also equip these phones with good software to augment their overall potential. Now we have learned through code analysis that Xiaomi is working on a new photo editing feature for these phones that will allow users to replace the “sky” with different sky presets.

This new feature will be a part of the photo editing functionality present within the MIUI Gallery app. With this upcoming feature, users can take images with a predominant sky element and swap it with a bunch of different presets depicting the sky in different scenes. The presets will not only alter the appearance of the sky but also add relevant lighting effects to the rest of the image and objects in order to better reflect the lighting condition had the sky been as it appears. There will also be a slider to control this lighting effect.

Here is a limited preview of the functionality in action, as activated by XDA Member kackskrz:

This sky replacement feature will be coming to upcoming devices “raphael”, “davinci” and “pyxis” at least on its debut. Judging by previous feature rollouts, we predict that the feature will also make its way across other Xiaomi devices in the existing lineup.

As far as these three devices are concerned, we know from previous coverage that “raphael” and “davinci” are upcoming flagship Snapdragon 855 devices with a pop-up camera setup and an optical, in-display fingerprint scanner. Xiaomi went on to confirm that it is indeed working on something similar through a teaser. The “pyxis” on the other hand, is likely to be the MIUI counterpart for an upcoming Android One device, and we speculate that this maybe the successor to the Mi 6X. The device will also, at least, have a 32MP front camera with pixel binning technology.

Update: Rolling out in MIUI beta

The sky replacement feature is now available in the latest MIUI beta and it has been shown off on Reddit. It appears to be available in version 2.2.12.2 of the gallery app. The photos above were edited with the feature by Reddit user G4B33.

Source: Reddit