14 DAY TRIAL // Even before Microsoft officially announced the Windows Phone 8.1 and unveiled some of the new features it would bring, there had been many rumors regarding the support for high-resolution photos that some Lumia smartphones would receive.
Nokia smartphones are very popular among those who love taking photos on the go, which is why Microsoft made it easier to keep these pictures stored in the cloud.
Those who own the most powerful camera phones launched by the Finnish company, the Lumia Icon, Lumia 1020 and Lumia 1520, probably know by now that they are allowed to back up their photos to OneDrive cloud.
However, with Windows Phone 8, only the “lower” versions of the photos can be stored on OneDrive, while the high-resolution pictures remain on the smartphone.
As WPCentral points out, these Nokia smartphones with PureView technology can take dual images, one for the lower 5MP JPG files, and the other is for the larger 16MP or 34MP JPG files, which allows for advanced editing options.
Even though both versions of the pictures are saved on the smartphones, only the lower-resolution photos benefit from the backup feature on OneDrive.
In order to enable the auto-backup feature in the Lumia smartphones, one would need to head over to Settings / Applications / Photos and Camera with the Wi-Fi option checked. It appears that Windows Phone 8 decided to back up only the 5MP versions of the photos when this feature was automatically enabled.
The good news is that with Windows Phone 8.1, users will be able to choose which versions of the pictures they shoot should be backed up in the cloud with OneDrive.
Windows Phone 8.1 early adopters can check the “Best Quality” option under the “Backup to OneDrive” feature, so now all high-resolution pictures will be stored on the OneDrive cloud instead of the 5MP versions.
The cited source also claims that while you can use the OneDrive application to back up photos in the cloud, it appears that it does not save the high-resolution pictures.
This means that you will only be able to back up high-resolution pictures using the Windows Phone 8.1 embedded option. Still, we expect OneDrive application to be updated to reflect the new changes, though we’re not sure when exactly that will happen.
Keep in mind that you will still not be able to back up DNG/RAW pictures to OneDrive directly from your phone. You can back up these types of files manually by copying them on the PC and then uploading them to OneDrive cloud.