Question Partially-Darkened Pics...

[Angie Rose Elizabeth]

Hey everyone:

It's me, again. I've tried looking this up, as well, and couldn't find anything. I'm not sure if it's because my phone will be a year old next week or whatever the case, but some of the pics on my phone have now been darkened, automatically, and I never changed their settings. The first one is the original pic's color, the one after that is what it now looks like.

 

[B. Diddy]

What app are you using to view the photo?

 

[Angie Rose Elizabeth]

What app are you using to view the photo?

Google Photos.

 

[B. Diddy]

Is it possible the photo with the darkened bars is actually a screenshot? What's the filename of the image?

 

[Angie Rose Elizabeth]

Is it possible the photo with the darkened bars is actually a screenshot? What's the filename of the image?

No because I remember it looking normal before it was 'changed'. The file name's from FB, with .jpg at the end of it.

 

[B. Diddy]

Is this an image you obtained from Facebook? Or is it an image you shared to Facebook, and then downloaded it back from Facebook?

 

[Angie Rose Elizabeth]

Is this an image you obtained from Facebook? Or is it an image you shared to Facebook, and then downloaded it back from Facebook?

It's an image I found/saved from FB to my phone.

 

[J Dubbs]

B. Diddy is like a dog on a bone, he is our resident fixer... if he can't figure a problem out it's usually unfixable All I can say is I'm glad we have him here

The Doctor is in

 

[B. Diddy]

What happens if you copy that photo to a PC (or email it to yourself and view it on a PC). Does it still have those darkened bars there?

 

[Angie Rose Elizabeth]

What happens if you copy that photo to a PC (or email it to yourself and view it on a PC). Does it still have those darkened bars there?

I've just tried it and it's not darkened, it's the original image. Now, I'm very confused.

 

[B. Diddy]

At least you know that the actual image does not have those dark bars. It must have to do with how Google Photos is displaying the image. I can't seem to duplicate it on my Pixel 7 Pro.

Go to Settings>Apps, select Google Photos, then Storage, then Clear Cache and Clear Storage. Then go back a step and Force Stop. Now open Google Photos again, give it a few seconds to resync with your account, and see if it persists.

 

[Mooncatt]

Do you have a header, tool bar, or anything else that commonly resides at the top and bottom of your screen? Looks like screen burn in to me since this isn't on the actual images.

 

[Angie Rose Elizabeth]

At least you know that the actual image does not have those dark bars. It must have to do with how Google Photos is displaying the image. I can't seem to duplicate it on my Pixel 7 Pro.

Go to Settings>Apps, select Google Photos, then Storage, then Clear Cache and Clear Storage. Then go back a step and Force Stop. Now open Google Photos again, give it a few seconds to resync with your account, and see if it persists.

I thought I already responded to this reply?
In case it didn't go through for whatever reason, I tried your suggestion and it acted as if I didn't even change the option to what you had said (from what I was seeing).

I'm even more convinced now that my phone's a 'lemon'.

 

[Angie Rose Elizabeth]

Do you have a header, tool bar, or anything else that commonly resides at the top and bottom of your screen? Looks like screen burn in to me since this isn't on the actual images.

No, none that I know of.

 

[B. Diddy]

I thought I already responded to this reply?
In case it didn't go through for whatever reason, I tried your suggestion and it acted as if I didn't even change the option to what you had said (from what I was seeing).

I'm even more convinced now that my phone's a 'lemon'.

Are you saying you went through the Clear Cache/Clear Storage steps? That won't change how the app normally works -- it's only meant to try clearing out any possible glitches. So you're saying you still see the dark bars when viewing in the Google Photos app, correct?

 

[Mooncatt]

No because I remember it looking normal before it was 'changed'. The file name's from FB, with .jpg at the end of it.

I understand you downloaded an ok copy from Facebook, but how did you capture the problematic image that you shared here? Did you open it in an editing app directly for the highlight edit, screenshot what you see and edit that, or take a photo of the problem with another camera?

Something else to try, go to this video in the YouTube app

(I know, who would've thought to upload a video of a white screen?)

Reverse pinch to stretch the video so that it completely covers your entire screen. Do you still see the darkened areas?

 

[Angie Rose Elizabeth]

Are you saying you went through the Clear Cache/Clear Storage steps? That won't change how the app normally works -- it's only meant to try clearing out any possible glitches. So you're saying you still see the dark bars when viewing in the Google Photos app, correct?

Ohhh, I see. Sadly, yes.

However, with the 'Clear Storage' option, it said it would delete all of my pics and videos from the Google Photos app, I know I didn't want to do that.

 

[B. Diddy]

No, clearing the storage of the Google Photos app will not affect the photos and videos that are saved on the phone, nor the ones that are in the cloud. It will clear out the app's database, but this gets rebuilt quickly as soon as you reopen the app.

 

[VidJunky]

Ok I'm able to reproduce the issue in Photos. When the aspect ratio is similar to the screen ratio and then zoomed in I get light grey bands at the top and bottom of the image. So are you zooming into these images to maybe read the text better when you're seeing these bands? I would go so far as to say if you continued to zoom in you'd find these bands do not move and remain the same size but will shift on your image as they are part of a letterbox effect.

As long as I stay within the natural zoom level and do not change the aspect ratio no bands. Perhaps if you try cropping the photos to the size you want them and then viewing them you'll find that the issue goes away. Why does photos have these grey zones that letter box the image I can't say but it appears that cropping and/or just not zooming resolves the issue.

PS, do what you do, but the colored text doesn't play well with dark mode. This is the second thread of yours I've participated in and it is extremely frustrating to try and read your comments.

 

[B. Diddy]

Ok I'm able to reproduce the issue in Photos. When the aspect ratio is similar to the screen ratio and then zoomed in I get light grey bands at the top and bottom of the image. So are you zooming into these images to maybe read the text better when you're seeing these bands? I would go so far as to say if you continued to zoom in you'd find these bands do not move and remain the same size but will shift on your image as they are part of a letterbox effect.

As long as I stay within the natural zoom level and do not change the aspect ratio no bands. Perhaps if you try cropping the photos to the size you want them and then viewing them you'll find that the issue goes away. Why does photos have these grey zones that letter box the image I can't say but it appears that cropping and/or just not zooming resolves the issue.

PS, do what you do, but the colored text doesn't play well with dark mode. This is the second thread of yours I've participated in and it is extremely frustrating to try and read your comments.

Hmm, I can't seem to reproduce it. Could you show screenshots? This is what it looks like for me:


No zoom


Zoomed in with status bar and photo option buttons visible. There's a dark grey bar on top but none on the bottom.


Zoomed in but status bar and photo option buttons toggled off after tapping the screen. No darkened bars at all. (FYI, the very thin dark bars you see are because I realized I didn't zoom in far enough beyond the top and bottom borders of the photo -- but that's still different from what the OP is showing, where there are transparent dark grey bars.)