Download Google Camera App with Motion Photo + Face Retouching on the Google Pixel

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Google-branded smartphones weren’t always known for their stellar camera quality. The Google Nexus smartphone series featured generally average picture-taking quality (though the Nexus 6P was a step above the rest). It wasn’t until the company started to take a more hardware-centric focus with the Google Pixel line-up that their smartphones’ camera quality would noticeably improve. Part of what makes the Pixel smartphones excel at taking photos is the Google Camera app with Google’s HDR+ technology. It’s a great way to take beautiful pictures without learning how to edit RAW images. Google wants to give users more options to capture the precious moments in their lives, so they’ve added a few new features to the Google Camera app in the Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL: Motion Photo, Face Retouching, and Portrait Mode among others.

We were able to spend some time with a Google Pixel 2 and have extracted a few system APKs for you to install. Earlier, we posted the updated Pixel Launcher APK which brings the new calendar/weather widget as well as the Google search bar at the bottom. Now, we will be sharing the latest Google Camera APK which adds Motion Photo and Face Retouching to your existing first generation Google Pixel and Google Pixel XL device. Have a Google Nexus device? Don’t worry, there are still some improvements in there for you.

Motion Photos are short (~3 second) video clips that are taken immediately before and after you hit the capture button. They’re not very high quality videos (1024×768 MP4 clips paired with the original JPEG according to AndroidPolice) but they’re pretty good at helping you to make your experiences more “alive.” Google has a couple of sample Motion Photos available for you to peruse.

Install Google Camera App with Motion Photo and Face Retouching on the Google Pixel/Pixel XL

All you need to do to enjoy this feature is to download the below app onto your phone. We tested the APK on a Google Pixel XL running Android 8.0 Oreo and they confirmed that Motion Photo does work! On the other hand one of our other testers states that the Portrait Mode and Face Retouching features aren’t there, but your mileage may vary. If those features do end up working for you, give us a shout out and we’ll update this article!

Download Google Camera with Motion Photo Support

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to install this Google Camera app on non-Google devices. Though, there is that neat unofficial Google Camera port we’ve been covering that brings HDR+ to many non-Google devices, so you’ll definitely want to check that out if you’re itching for some of the best software features offered by Google.

Update #1 Face Retouching Works

After multiple reports, we can now confirm that the Face Retouching feature does in fact work on the Google Pixel devices.

Update #2 Google Nexus Improvements

Users are reporting that this update greatly improves general performance of the app. For example, the FPS in the camera viewfinder is increased, and the UI is overall more snappy.

Update #3 Clarifying “HDR+ Enhanced”

Sorry everyone, but HDR+ Enhanced is nothing special. Google just renamed the strings to better reflect how HDR+ works in the Google Camera app.

<string name="hdr_auto_desc">HDR+ on</string> <string name="hdr_on_desc">HDR+ enhanced</string> <string name="hdr_plus_auto_desc">HDR Plus on</string> <string name="hdr_plus_on_desc">HDR Plus enhanced</string>

As you can see in the above strings, taken from an APK teardown of the latest Google Camera app, what was previously known as HDR+ Auto is now HDR+ On and what was once known as HDR+ On is now HDR+ Enhanced.