Google Pixel 3 Gets Photobooth Mode to Capture Best Selfies Automatically, Can Detect Kissing, Smiles, and Other Expressions

Google Pixel 3 range has got the all-new Photobooth mode that is designed to capture selfies automatically, with triggers like kissing, smiling, and more. The shutter-free mode that is inspired by the automatic photography of Google Clips is specially programmed to detect kissing. Google says that the Photobooth relies on two distinct models to capture kissing scenes -- a model for facial expressions and another model to detect when people kiss. However, apart from capturing couples when they kiss, the new mode on Pixel 3 phones can help users capture their solo and group selfies with expressions such as smile, tongue-out, duck face, and surprise. The development is initially limited to the default Camera app available on the Pixel 3 models.

Sitting alongside the existing Top Shot and Portrait modes, the Photobooth mode on Pixel 3 is aimed to capture your "best pictures possible" using artificial intelligence (AI) based algorithms. Google claims that the mode automatically captures photos when the camera is steady and subjects in the frame are seen to have good expressions with their eyes open.

To enable the great experience automatically, Google has worked with photographers that help the new system identify five key expressions, namely smiles, tongue-out, kissy/ duck face, puffy-cheeks, and surprise. The ability to identify people kissing on the camera is the USP, though.

"The kiss detection model used by Photobooth is a variation of the Image Content Model (ICM) trained for Google Clips, fine-tuned specifically to focus on kissing. Both of these models use MobileNets in order to run efficiently on-device while continuously processing the images at a high frame rate. The outputs of the models are used to evaluate the quality of each frame for the shutter control algorithm," Google AI team consists of Senior Software Engineer Navid Shiee and Staff Research Scientist Aseem Agarwala explains in a blog post.

Once selected, the Photobooth mode shows a visual indicator, a bar at the top of the screen that grows in size when the photo quality scores increase. This helps users understand how the mode is working on their device.

Google underlines that the line of the bar is divided into four distinct ranges -- no faces clearly seen, faces seen but not paying attention to the camera, faces paying attention but not making key expressions, and faces paying attention with key expressions.

"In order to make this indicator more interpretable, we forced the bar into these ranges, which prevented the bar scaling from being too rapid. This resulted in smooth variability of the bar length as the quality score changes and improved the utility," the team adds.

The screen flashes when the indicator bar reaches a length representative of a high-quality score to notify users that their photo was captured and save.

Google has added the Photobooth mode to the latest Camera app version for Pixel 3 devices. We were able to spot the mode within the Camera app version 6.2.024.239729896. Moreover, you can download the latest version directly from Google Play.

You need to tap the More option from the mode selector strip and then select the Photobooth mode. Once selected, just tap the shutter button to start capturing selfies automatically.

Can Google Pixel 3 succeed without massive discounts? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.