UPDATED 10:00 EDT / DECEMBER 17 2014

Facebook app now improves your pictures for you

facebookNew updates to Facebook Inc.’s mobile app include features that automatically enhance photos uploaded to the social network, improving both image clarity and lighting.

Proving the old adage that “the best camera is the one you have with you,” mobile phones have replaced digital cameras as the dominant image capture tools, and what was previously a bonus novelty is now a staple feature of mobile devices.

But not all phone cameras are created equal, with many suffering from issues like slow capture time, trouble focusing, poor low-light performance or spotty resolution.

And that does not even consider the skill of the person taking the pictures. Not everyone can be Ansel Adams, and a little extra help with improving image quality could not hurt.

 

Borrowing from within?

 

The new image tweaks are a step up from the Facebook app’s previous offerings, which offered an extremely simple take-it-or-leave-it lighting enhancement and a handful of somewhat unimpressive filters.

The new features include easy to use sliders that are very similar to those used in the Facebook-owned Instagram app, which allows users to quickly increase or decrease image exposure, sharpness, contrast, and more. Images uploaded through the Facebook mobile app will be automatically enhanced, but the new sliders allow users to increase or decrease the effects.

While Facebook itself is still more popular than Instagram in terms of raw numbers, the social network has been hurting with the younger demographics, who prefer the short format, image-centric nature of apps like Instagram and Snapchat. Even those who share Instagram photos on other platforms tend to do so over Twitter rather than Facebook.

With the Facebook app receiving a few Instagram-like features, it is hard to imagine that the social network might not consider borrowing aspects of other tools. But the recent trend for the company has been to break up apps rather than combine them, with features like Facebook Messenger and Facebook Groups being given their own specialized mobile apps.

The new image enhancement features are currently only available on the iOS version of the Facebook app, but they will soon be rolled out on Android devices as well.


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