Take high-quality photos on your Pixel phone or tablet

While using your camera, your phone will be straight when the two lines meet and the angle is zero.

1. Open your Camera app .
2. Hold your phone steady. A yellow line and a white line appear in the middle of the screen.
3. To make the lines meet, rotate your phone left to right and tilt it forwards and backwards.
4. If you point your phone up or down at your subject, the 'Up/Down' indicator appears.
5. To align the 'Up/Down' indicator and take a straight photo, rotate your phone left to right and tilt it forwards and backwards.

1. Open your Camera app .
2. At the bottom left, tap Settings.
3. Tap More settings.
4. Turn off Framing hints.

Important: This feature is only available on Pixel 8 Pro, Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro XL.

You can use the slider at the bottom of your photos to adjust the photo's:

• Focus
• Shutter speed
• ISO

Important: This feature is only available on Pixel 8 Pro, Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro XL.

You can capture high-resolution, 50 MP photos and control other aspects of your photos like colour and exposure.

To turn on high resolution:

1. Open your Camera app .
2. On the bottom left, tap Settings  Pro tab.
3. Set Resolution to 50 MP.

To take portrait photos:

To add a blurred background on your photo:

1. Open the Google Photos app .
2. Tap Photos.
3. Tap Edit photo Tools Blur .
4. Move the Blur slider.

Tip: For Pixel Tablet, you can only use Portrait mode on the front camera.

Important: This feature is only available on Pixel 8 and later.

You can use face retouching to adjust your skin texture, under-eye tone and eye brightness.

To turn on face retouching:

1. Open your Camera app .
2. In the bottom menu, tap Portrait  Settings  Face retouching.
3. Select an option:
   • Off
   • Subtle
   • Smooth

Important: This feature is only available on Pixel 9 and later.

You can now be part of any group photo. Take a group photo, swap with someone to capture another photo and join the group. The camera stitches together the two versions with Add Me.

1. Open your Camera app .
2. On the photo mode carousel, tap Add Me.
3. Move your camera around to scan the area around the subjects.
   • Tip: Make sure that you leave room for yourself in the frame.
4. Take your first photo.
5. Hand your Pixel to another person in the group and join the scene.
6. The second photographer needs to align the phone with the frame and make sure that you're in the frame of the first photo.
   • Tip: If the frame is red, the phone isn't correctly aligned.
7. When the frame turns white, the second photographer can tap Capture again.
8. The camera stitches your two photos together for a photo with everyone in the frame.

Taking pictures underwater can be hard because of the way that light works. Below the surface, red, yellow and orange light are reflected by the water, so that only blue and green light can be seen in deep water.

To correct these issues, Pixel camera uses a special AWB algorithm designed and optimised to colour-correct for an underwater environment. You can turn on this feature in Advanced settings.

Important:

• This feature is available on Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro XL.
• You must use a waterproof case to take underwater photos.

To capture the true colour of underwater scenes:

1. Open your Camera app .
2. At the bottom left, tap Settings More settings Advanced.
3. Turn on Underwater photography and video.

This feature is only available on:

• Pixel 6 Pro
• Pixel 7 Pro
• Pixel 8 Pro
• Pixel Fold
• Pixel 9 and later

When you zoom in or out on your camera, your phone automatically selects which lens to use. However, if you want to select a specific lens, you can enable manual lens selection.

1. Open your Camera app .
2. At the bottom left, tap Settings .
3. Go to the Pro tab.
4. Next to 'Lens selection', tap Manual .
5. When this feature is active, the standard zoom control is replaced with a button for each lens on your phone:
   • Ultrawide (UW)
   • Wide (W)
   • Tele (T)
6. To zoom, touch and hold the button for the lens that you want to use.
   • To zoom out, you can also pinch two fingers together on the screen. To zoom in, you can spread them apart.

You can use Ultrawide zoom to capture more people and surroundings.

1. Open your Camera app .
2. On your screen, pinch to zoom out.

1. To focus on the subject of your photo, point your camera at the subject
2. Tap on the subject. A white circle appears and moves on the screen with the subject.
3. To lock the focus and exposure on a subject that moves, tap Lock .

Tip: If you have accessibility features turned on, to focus on and expose the subject of your photo, double-tap your screen.

1. Open your Camera app .
2. On the photo mode carousel, tap Panorama.
3. You can switch panning direction by clicking on the preview bar or changing it in settings.
4. Pause briefly on each dot (for Night Sight panorama, pausing time will be longer.)
5. Make sure that the level indicator is levelled when pausing on the dot.
6. Follow the arrow.
7. To stop the capture, tap the shutter button.

Tip: To cancel a photo, tap Close .

Important: This feature is only available on Pixel 3 to Pixel 7a.

With your Pixel camera, you can create different types of 360-degree photo spheres, such as panorama photo spheres and fisheye photos. To create a 360-degree photo sphere:

1. Open your Camera app .
2. On the photo mode carousel, tap Photo Sphere Capture.
3. Hold the target circle over a white dot. The dot will turn blue, then disappear.
4. Move the camera to the next white dot as you hold the lens steady.
5. Repeat until there are no more white dots or tap Done .

To change your Photo Sphere type:

• At the bottom left, tap Settings .
  • To take a 360-degree photo, tap Panorama Photo Sphere .
  • To take a horizontal photo, tap Horizontal .
  • To take a vertical photo, tap Vertical.
  • To take a photo with a wide arc, tap Wide-angle .
  • To take a fisheye photo, tap Fisheye .

Important: This feature is only available on Pixel 7 Pro, Pixel 8, Pixel 8 Pro, Pixel 9 and later.

Use Macro Focus to capture small details like flower petals or dew drops in your photos and videos.

To use Macro Focus:

1. Open your Camera app .
2. Move your device close to your subject.
3. Tap the screen to place the focus.
4. When the Macro flower appears, take your photo or video.

Tips:

• Do not shade your subject or block your light source.
• To turn Macro Focus on or off, tap .
• To focus on a specific part of your subject, tap the screen where you want to focus.
• This feature also works with Auto Night Sight.

Capture photos of subjects from a distance. With the next generation of zoom lenses, you can zoom up to 30x on some Pixel devices.

Tip: Zoom stabilisation turns on automatically on Pixel 7 Pro, Pixel 8 Pro and Pixel Fold phones zoomed to 15x.

1. Open your Camera app .
2. Zoom in to your subject.
   • For quick adjustments: Tap the 2x or 5x zoom button above the shutter.
   • For more precision: Pinch the screen or swipe across the zoom buttons to show the zoom slider.
3. Tap your subject to focus.
4. Take your photo.

Tip: Bright light is best for photos captured with zoom and stabilisation.