Pixel 11 takes on iPhone's Photographic Styles with Camera Looks, including retro film filters

A complaint with modern phone cameras that more and more people have is about the excessive digital processing that images go through. This has resulted in more and more users yearning for camera apps that deliver photos with minimal or no processing. Google seems to be incorporating that feedback for its newly launched Pixel 11 series, and giving users control over how processed they want their images to be — along with a host of film-inspired camera filters.

With Pixel 11, Google brings what it calls Camera Looks, which includes distinct color filters that you can apply to your photos. The new feature, which appears to be Google’s take on the iPhone’s Photographic Styles, lets you choose among the following four styles:

• Original,
• Natural style for muted details, somewhat like an iPhone’s camera,
• Shadows for a more contrasty look, and
• Vanilla for a warmer, softer tone with a golden glow.

If you don’t like the presets, the Pixel 11 will also let you customize each of these Looks to your liking. And once you tune them to your preference, you can also save them as the default look for your camera.

In addition to customizable Looks, Pixel 11’s camera also gets retro-looking filters to recreate the aesthetics of film cameras. These include six presets (including one black-and-white filter) for a nostalgic look over images. Google recently introduced similar film-inspired filters through its Snapseed Camera app. Ironically, the app is not available for Android and is limited to iPhones.

Google says it intentionally limits HDR frames in these images to prevent them from looking overly processed. It claims the sensor-level color lookup tables (LUTs) have been designed specifically to simulate the chemistry behind developing a print from a film negative.

Camera Looks, including the new film-style color filters, are currently exclusive to the Pixel 11 series. But Google has indicated there’s a chance they also arrive on older devices, but chose to leave out the details.