Google Photos “High quality” vs “Original”

As you can see, the photo itself has not been reduced in size, but the file size has been crunched down from over 16 MB, all the way down to almost a megabyte! And seemingly at no cost at all! It’s almost like magic, but it just comes down to Google’s clever image compression algorithms. The source file was as large as it was, because the shot was taken using Samsung’s “Selective Focus” feature, which is ideal for close-ups such as this one. Google Photos was able to reduce the file’s size so much, because a large portion of the image is out of focus, which allows for a lot more compression to be done in the areas that are lacking in detail.

As much as we don’t like pixel peeping, it will be necessary in this case, as we have to determine the extent of the compression. So, let’s see what happens when we examine these 100% crops of both images:

100% crop

It just boggles the mind how the file size of the image can be reduced so much without any noticeable loss of detail, even when examining parts of it up close.

Just for the heck of it, let’s delve even deeper and see at what point a difference in quality becomes apparent.

622% crop

This part of the photo was blown-up to 622%! Changes don’t become noticeable until you zoom in to about 500%. You will never, ever, examine any of your photos from this up close.

Let’s give it another try, again from the S8:

Interestingly, in this particular case, although the photo was the same resolution as before, Google Photos decided to not only reduce the size of the file, but scale down the image as well. After the compression, we are left with an image with a resolution of 2268 x 3024, which is roughly equivalent to 7 MP, down from the original 12 MP. Ouch. It doesn’t look bad or anything, but this seemingly per-photo type of compression may not be to the liking of some people out there (I can vouch for this). We tried running this particular image through Google Photos twice and the results were identical both times.

Photos that don’t go over the 16 MP come out of the ordeal mostly unscathed, but let’s see what happens to larger shots that pack more detail and information than the ones above. This one was taken with the Huawei P10, which is equipped with a 20MP, Leica-branded, monochrome camera:

This time around, the photo was scaled down to 16MP, but as far as compression goes, the size of the file was not reduced as drastically as before. Apart from the image itself becoming smaller after in the end, it exhibits no discernible loss of detail due to compression.

Let’s see what happens to another shot from P10’s capable monochrome camera:

Same story, photo was resized to fit 16 MP limit, still looks good. However, when dealing with larger than 16 MP images, Google Photos seemingly also changes their aspect ratio ever so slightly. For example, the photo above was originally shot in a standard aspect ratio of 4:3 (or 1.33:1), but after the compression, we ended up with an image that’s slightly wider and has a non-standard aspect ratio. It is barely noticeable, but it’s something that happens.

But let’s consider one more scenario that may concern some of you out there – what happens to RAW files when you use the “High quality” setting?

While the image size limitations are still in force when dealing with RAW images, even if they are smaller than 16 MP, they’ll still get compressed and converted to regular JPEGs, meaning that all that sensor image data goes down the drain. If your phone is capable of it, or if you shoot RAW on your dedicated camera, we’d advise against relying on the “High quality” setting for storing your photos.

Bottom line is, if you’re short on space and are mainly storing photos that you took with your phone, you are mostly A-OK to use the “High quality” setting. You will never, ever, examine any of your photos so up close as to tell the difference between the original and compressed versions. However, as we saw in one of the examples, Google Photos sometimes scales down even images that fit within the limitations of the “High quality” tier. Although it did this to only one of the images, it’s still something to keep in mind.

Further, since most smartphone cameras have 12 MP or 16 MP sensors, the limitations of Google’s free unlimited storage do not seem all that imposing. However, if you own a smartphone with a 20+ MP sensor, or are using the platform to store images from your dedicated camera, you may want to think twice before relying on “High quality,” and opt for “Original” instead. This applies full force if you’re storing RAW image files.