Google Photos just gained a brand-new AI-Powered editor and easy Album sharing with QR codes.
Key Takeaways
- A New editing experience is coming to Google Photos
- Pixel 9-exclusive features to be made available to everyone
- Powerful AI tools are included
Google Photos has just turned ten years old, and the company is marking the occasion with a raft of powerful new features.
New Google Photos Features Explained
New AI-powered editor: Perhaps the most significant upgrade is Google’s new editor, which brings together a range of AI-powered functions, some of which were previously available only to Pixel 9-series owners.
Google has completely redesigned the Google Photos editor, making it simpler to use and adding … More
These include Auto Frame, which presents different ways to crop your photos, automatically using generative fill where necessary to extend the image to fit the required shape, and Reimagine, which lets you add creative new elements to your pictures by describing them with text prompts.
Additionally, a new AI Enhance feature provides a one-tap AI-powered edit that deploys multiple tools to generate three new versions of your image, from which you can then select your favorite.
The editor’s user interface has also undergone a radical redesign, which may take a little getting used to, but is designed to make editing more intuitive by suggesting the best edits for you. Draw around an object to select it, and Google Photos will automatically display the tools most relevant to your selection.
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The new Google Photos editor will start rolling out in June for Android 8 and higher, with iOS support following later this year.
Share albums with QR codes: Google is making it easier to create shared albums by generating shareable QR codes that anyone can scan to join. Google suggests printing them out to share at events, so that anyone present can view or add photos to your group album simply by scanning the QR code.
This addition reduces the effort required to share albums, as there is no longer a need to send links or invitations to multiple recipients manually.
The new QR code album sharing feature has now started rolling out. I can already see it in my Google Photos Android app, but not so far via photos.google.com on the Web. The feature also works for Google’s automatically generated Moments, which can now be shared in precisely the same way.
You can see the feature in action in this Android Authority video, where it was discovered last month prior to its release.
Ten Years Of Google Photos
The origins of Google Photos can be traced back much farther than ten years, starting with Picasa Web Albums in 2006 (the eagle-eyed among you might spot the Picasa logo rolling across the screen in Google’s promotional video below). Google then migrated its online photo service to Google+ Photos in 2011 before the birth of Google Photos in 2015, which tempted new users to sign up by offering unlimited free High-Quality photo storage — until Google eventually rescinded this offer in 2021.
You can read more about Google Photos’ 10th anniversary, along with helpful tips and tricks, at the Google Photos blog.
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