An AI update is coming to Google Photos. The internet behemoth revealed on Wednesday that a few improved editing tools, such as its AI-powered Magic Editor, that were previously exclusive to Pixel devices and paying customers will now be available to all Google Photos users for free. Along with these features, this upgrade offers Google’s Magic Eraser, which eliminates unwanted objects from images, Photo Unblur, which sharpens blurry images using machine learning, Portrait Light, which allows you to alter the light source in photos after the fact, and more.
In the past, Google’s editing capabilities have served as both a selling point for its premium Pixel phones and an attraction for Google One, a cloud storage subscription service. However, Google has made the decision to make its suite of AI photo editing features available to more people for free due to the increasing number of AI-powered editing apps that are flooding the market.
This extension does come with some restrictions, though.
First off, it will take several weeks for all Google Photos users to have access to the capabilities; they will only begin to roll out on May 15.
To use them, you also need to meet certain hardware requirements. For example, the device needs to be a Chromebook Plus running ChromeOS version 118 or higher, or have a minimum of 3GB of RAM. On a mobile device, iOS 15 or Android 8.0 or above must be installed.
The business announces that support for Pixel tablets has expanded.
The group’s most noteworthy feature is Magic Editor. This editing feature was unveiled with the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro last year. It employs generative AI to perform more complex photo edits, including as cropping out unwanted areas, moving the subject, and making additional adjustments to the background or foreground. You can use Magic Editor to do a variety of tasks, including as turning a grey sky blue, removing people from a picture’s backdrop, recentering the topic of the image while filling in any gaps, and more.
To achieve the same results, these types of adjustments used to require Magic Eraser and other expensive editing software, like Photoshop. And rather than being automated by AI, those edits would be more manual.
Magic Editor will be available on all Pixel devices as a result of the expansion, and users of iOS and Android phones that satisfy the necessary specifications will receive 10 Magic Editor savings every month. They will still need to purchase a Premium Google One plan in order to use more storage, which starts at 2TB.
All Google Photos users will have access to the other capabilities; a Google One subscription is not needed. Magic Eraser, Photo Unblur, Sky Suggestions, Colour Pop, HDR Effect for Images and Videos, Portrait Blur, Portrait Light (along with the tool’s add light/balance light features), Cinematic Photos, Collage Editor Styles, and Video Effects are all included in the complete feature set that will be made available.
Other features, such as the AI-powered Best Take, which combines related images to produce a single optimal picture in which everyone is grinning, will remain exclusive to the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro.
