The Pixel 11 lineup has earned its reputation as a safe upgrade — or boring, if you’re looking to be a little less generous to Google — but it’s delivering one thing I’ve been begging for literal years: Camera Looks. Google’s take on the iPhone’s Photographic Styles have been a long time coming, and appear to be set to play a big role in shaking up the conversation around the Pixel’s evenly-lit, HDR-heavy processing. I’ve been experimenting with them while working towards my eventual Pixel 11 Pro XL review, and I have to say, I’m mostly satisfied. Mostly.
Camera Looks is, at long last, an acknowledgement that Google’s photo “optimizations” have gone too far since Marc Levoy left Google for Adobe in 2020. While I’m not trying to make it sound as though one single person was why the Pixel’s camera system was so universally beloved in its pre-Tensor era, the philosophy around Levoy’s approach to computational photography — something he’s now experimenting on with an iOS-only app at Adobe — certainly feels from a bygone era. While photos captured on the Pixel 8, or 9, or 10 certainly look good by its textbook definition, they’re also lacking the personality and character found on devices like, for example, my beloved OnePlus 13 from a couple of years ago.
