With the launch of thePixel 8 and 8 Pro, Google introducedUltra HDR photographyto parts of its phone lineup. The new image format uses HDR displays’ capabilities to their fullest extent, making it possible to show even brighter and hence more contrast-rich images. The standard is built on top of JPEG and backwards-compatible with older displays, ideally making the switch to Ultra HDR photography as smooth as it can be. It looks like there are some hiccups, though. People are noticing that when downloading Ultra HDR images from Google Photos on the web, no metadata is saved.
When you have Ultra HDR enabled on your Pixel 6, 7, or 8, the problem can be replicated easily. Just head to Google Photos on the web, select one or multiple Ultra HDR images, and download them to your machine. When you look at the metadata after downloading, you will find that it’s empty. That’s despite the original images on the phones having all the information saved and Google Photos on the web also surfacing some of the metadata in its information side panel. The problem can bereplicated by multiple Redditors.
When you try the same with other images that aren’t saved in the Ultra HDR format, you see all the expected metadata, including the location the photo was taken if you have this option enabled in your camera app. Hence, the only fix to be able to download images with full metadata from Photos is to turn off Ultra HDR. Alternatively, you could export the image directly from your phone or upload it to a different cloud service. Given that Google made a big deal of the format when it launched the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro, none of this is ideal for Google Photos users.
Similar problems exist when you want to download many images at onceusing Google Takeout. When you go for this route, your images are separated from their metadata, with the latter sitting in files of their own. This problem can usually be avoided by downloading images straight from Google Photos, without resorting to the tool that Google built specifically for this purpose. That makes it likely that the Ultra HDR issue is caused by a different problem altogether, since the metadata is just plainly missing.
It’s possible that the issue has existed since Google launched Ultra HDR photos on its devices. Since Ultra HDR is only enabled on the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro by default but not on older Pixel phones, and not everyone checks if metadata has been downloaded along with their images straight away, the problem could have simply flown under the radar. We can only hope that Google will provide a quick fix.
