Qualcomm has introduced its new high end processor for the top mobiles of 2023 and, in addition to incorporating improvements in energy optimization or performance, it also comes with important novelties in computational photography that will allow mobile phones that mount it to make a qualitative leap in this section.
One of the main improvements of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is its ability to process data related to the Artificial intelligencean element that has more and more weight in the field of mobile photography.
Improving the power to manage algorithms, the new qualcomm processor It manages to bring the perception of the human eye closer to the shapes, the depth of the environment and the treatment of colors to process the photos in a way that our brain perceives as “more natural” and realistic.
The new functions not only affect the photo processingthey also do it in the field of videos thanks to the improvements in power of the new generation of processors.
More power to work with more pixels
One of the direct consequences of the increase in power and efficiency of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is the ability to manage the information collected from the sensor.
Is processor performance improvement leaves the door open to work with larger sensors in 2023.
In fact, the brand has worked closely with Sony to optimize the performance of the 1″ Sony sensors that will arrive with the IMX 989 through a joint venture of both companies, and together with Samsung to refine its 200 Mpx ISOCELL HP3 sensor.
In this way, mobile phones that mount these sensors will benefit from improvements such as Quad HDR, filter of hardware level noise reductionimprovements in tone mapping and hardware noise filtering in dark scenes.
Cognitive ISP: the processor that sees photography like humans
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 integrates a new ISP (Image Signal Processor) that is responsible for processing and converting the information that comes from the camera sensor into the image that you finally see in the photo gallery of your mobile.
The functions of the ISP fall on the platform Snapdragon Spectra Cognitive ISPwhich interprets the images through what Qualcomm has called the Semantic Segmentation Filter in real time, which, said in a less bombastic way, is simply that it emulates the perception of images as the human brain does.
The new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Cognitive ISP It allows you to identify the different elements of the scene, isolate them by layers and process them separately based on their position and importance in the photo, thus enhancing a greater sense of depth and giving more weight to the main elements of the scene.
For example, if you take a photo of a flower in the foreground, and in the background you have a forest and a mountain in the distance, this process will happen:
- The ISP will detect each of these elements
- It will enhance color and sharpness in the foreground
- It will give more intensity to the sky
- It will blur the elements as they are further in the background and gradually lose intensity, simulating as it happens in reality due to the effect of the atmosphere on the light
To simplify it, it’s like having a photo editor with the power of Photoshop, within the processor itself processing faces and elements to give them the proper weight in the composition of a photo.
This, which is already complicated in photography due to the difficulty of having to identify each element of the scene, gives another twist when applied to video, repeating this entire process in each frame of the video.
If it doesn’t move, don’t change it.
Another of the things that Qualcomm has shown us at its annual launch event is the integration of an adaptive system for the frame rate through Artificial Intelligence that allows detecting scenes in which there is movement to accelerate the frame rate only in the areas of the scene where movement is generated.
With this I know creates an image with sharper movementssaving resources when generating the videos and optimizing the space they occupy since the video will not be, for example, 60 fps all the time if the image is still and there is not too much movement, while the frame rate is averages when there is movement.
In this sense, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 also brings improvements in video editing with the platform Pro Sight Video Capture for professional quality video production.
This platform offers support for recording in HDR profiles in RAW format and provides greater support for HDR standards (Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HLG) and codecs, adding content playback with the AV1 codec to the list of supported formats.
Bokeh Engine 2, creative blurs are now done by hardware
The bokeh in mobile photos it is not something new. We see it in portraits, but some brands have developed their own creative blur “filters”. Over time these filters have evolved and have also been applied to video.
with platform Qualcomm Bokeh Engine a further step is taken in this field using Artificial Intelligence to generate that creative blur effect in a more precise way and processing it at the hardware level, so the resulting image is cleaner because the effect has been generated before processing the rest aspects of the image that we have discussed before.
This also helps to create a more natural and precise blur in portraits by detecting, for example, that the temple of the glasses through the glass cannot be at the same level of sharpness as the eyes, so it applies a slight blur and everything fades until it reaches the bottom of the image.
Thanks to this technology, calls can also be modified Bokeh Balls making the characteristic circles that leave the lights out of focus in the background adopting different geometric shapes, hearts, etc., and all this directly from the cognitive ISP of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.
In any case, it is necessary to emphasize that all these are functions that the new Qualcomm processors support, but the last word always rests with the manufacturerswho can activate or not activate these functions in their best mobiles of 2023.