What is Portrait Mode? How does it works?

What is Portrait Mode?

In photography, Portrait Mode is a function of the camera used to take photograph focusing the single subject. When taking photographs in a portrait mode the camera uses a large aperture to keep background out of focus using depth sensing so subject which is photographed only remains in the focus.

How Portrait mode works?

The top new feature of i phone 7+ was portrait mode. It is a new software feature that uses the dual camera lens to create the effect and look like picture clicked by DSLR camera. This 10 min video from Marquess Brown lee explains how it works. The portrait mode is now available in the most smartphone brands.



This portrait mode uses depth mapping to differentiate between subject and background. It then makes the background blur using software depending on the distances between the background and in-focus subject and highlights the subject so viewer's vision first attracted towards the subject.
As Brown Lee discovers the differences between images captured by I phone and pixel 2. The I phone extremely focus on the face and also blurs the hairs, ears and some other objects which are in same plane of face. The pixel 2 is doing good job in focusing on the entire face and aggressively blurs the background.

How Dual Pixel Portrait Mode works in Pixel 2?

The most astonishing feature of Pixel 2 is that it takes Portrait shots using only one lens, while it is essential to have dual lens to take better Portrait shots.



The reason behind it is that the sensor of the Google Pixel 2 supports Dual Pixel Technology. In it, sensor has millions of pixels and each pixel has its two sub-pixels.



This sub-pixels captures the light coming from two different angles. Dual pixel technology is used to distinguish between the subject and background and Google AI is used to produce blur effect in the background.



Though Pixel 2 has single camera hardware but Google AI is efficient enough to take wonderful portrait shots. Dual Pixel works better on animals and inanimate objects also. Google has used more 1 million pictures and scenarios to enhance the Google AI to distinguish between the subjects and backgrounds.



This is all about the Dual Pixel Technology.