Android 16 Beta 2 Improves HDR Screenshots

A change in Android 16’s second beta release improves how HDR is handled in screenshots, preserving HDR details in the final image.

The use of HDR content is increasingly widespread nowadays, and certainly comes with a selection of benefits throughout social media apps and more. However, it also comes with some headaches and quirks. One of those is how screenshots are taken, as the combination of HDR and non-HDR content in the screenshot can often look a bit funky.

Google has been working to fix that, with later versions of Android 15 introducing a new algorithm that preserves the colors and detail of HDR without blowing out the app, which used to appear darker, as noted by Android Authority. But the final screenshot still loses HDR support.

Android 16 is fixing that.

Android 16 Beta 2 quietly introduces improved handling of screenshots of HDR content. To be specific, it preserves the HDR content, still showing the screenshot with HDR elements as they appeared at the time of the screenshot, at least on compatible displays. The saved images are PNG files with an HDR gainmap, as Dylan Raga and ledoge on GitHub found.