For months I have been using the Google Pixel 8 for work and personal photos, but I could not get used to the camera output. After fifteen years with Samsung phones, switching to Pixel felt strange. The Galaxy S25 Plus is my daily driver, but for a fair comparison I dusted off the Galaxy S23, which launched the same year as the Pixel 8. The two companies take opposite approaches. Google leans heavily on computation and AI for lighting and color, while Samsung uses a more traditional 3x optical telephoto lens. Both strategies work, but the final images look very different.
Open Camera bypasses Google's HDR+ pipeline with better sharpness
The Galaxy S23 produces sharper and more contrasted photos, with colors that pop. The Pixel 8 gives softer and more neutral images. To reduce the gap, I looked for a replacement for Samsung's Camera Assistant, a Good Lock module that offers deep controls. After mixed results with other apps, I settled on Open Camera, an open source app with no subscription. It uses the Camera2 API to bypass Google's proprietary HDR+ multi-frame synthesis. I shot around fifty frames of a flower pot and a water bottle under inconsistent window light. The noise reduction mode impressed me most and produced excellent outdoor shots.
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White balance shifted toward warm tones brings Pixel closer to Samsung
Despite the improvement, colors were still less vivid than the S23's. So I revisited the Pixel camera app settings. I raised the brightness slider to fix washed out subjects and moved the white balance toward warm orange. That made a real difference, though not every frame matched perfectly. For some scenes, post processing is still necessary, but the foundation is much better.
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Shooting in 4 a 3 unlocks the real potential of the Pixel sensor
Another breakthrough was switching from 16 a 9 to 4 a 3. The Pixel sensor is optimized for this aspect ratio. The extra detail and color consistency are noticeable. This reminds me of how Samsung's software fine tuning can change the experience, as seen in the Galaxy Z Fold 8 test where black bars on video apps are significantly reduced thanks to a better software implementation. Both cases prove that hardware is only half of the story. According to Wikipedia, the Pixel 8 relies heavily on computational photography.
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Pixel is not inferior, it simply needs the right adjustments
After weeks of tweaking, I concluded that the Pixel 8 camera is not worse than Samsung's, just different. With the right tools and a bit of practice, the results can get very close to the Samsung look. Outdoor photos with Open Camera were excellent, and the native camera with manual adjustments handled low light much better. It takes patience, but for those who love their Pixel hardware, these changes make the camera feel like a completely new device.
Source: https://www.androidpolice.com/finally-tweaked-pixel-camera-vibrant-samsung-look
