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Real Tone
Portraits on Pixel represent the nuances of different skin tones for all people, beautifully and authentically.
What is Real Tone?

Google’s mission is to make our camera and image products work more equitably for everyone. Historically, camera technology has excluded people of color, resulting in unflattering photos for those with darker skin tones. We improved our camera tuning models and algorithms to more accurately highlight diverse skin tones with Real Tone software.

How Real Tone helps.

We focused on six core areas to make Pixel our most inclusive camera.

Recognize a broader set of faces

To make a great portrait, your phone first has to see a face in the picture. So, we trained our face detector models to “see” more diverse faces in more lighting conditions.

Correctly represent skin color in pictures

Auto-white balance models help determine color in a picture. Our partners helped us hone these models to better reflect a variety of skin tones.

Make skin brightness appear more natural

Similarly, we made changes to our auto-exposure tuning to balance brightness and ensure your skin looks like you – not unnaturally brighter or darker.

Reduce washed-out images

Stray light shining in an image can make darker skin tones look washed out, so we developed an algorithm to reduce its negative effects in your pictures.

Sharpen images even in low light

Getting a sharp portrait in dim light shouldn’t depend on how you look, so we significantly cut down image blur for people with darker skin tones in Night Sight portraits.

More ways to tune up any photo

Our experts also helped us improve Google Photos’ auto enhance software — so you can achieve a beautiful, representative photo regardless of when you took the photo, or which device you used.

Spotlight
Wakandans in Real Tone

Ebony magazine used Real Tone to feature the stars of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever on its digital cover.

Building with the community

Google partnered with photographers to accurately portray the skin tone of more than 60 individuals of different backgrounds and ethnicities using Pixel with Real Tone.

Adaeze OkaroAdrian O. WalkerAdrienne RaquelAva BerkofskyCampbell AddyDana ScruggsDeun IvoryFarhan HussainJomo FrayJoshua KissiKennedi CarterKira KellyKristian MercadoLuke SirimongkhonMambu BayohMicaiah CarterNatacha IkoliNoémie TshinangaShayan AsgharniaWarwick ThorntonZuly Garcia
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  1. Google Pixel in collaboration with T Brand, the content studio of New York Times Advertising.