Joe Maring / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google is celebrating 10 years of Google Photos with a fresh look and new tools for the editor.
- You can now share entire albums instantly with people nearby with just a QR code.
- The rollout for the new photo editor begins next month for Android users, and iOS later this year.
For a lot of people, Google Photos is where all their memories live in terms of cloud-based storage. With at least 15GB of space on the free tier, Google Photos is one of the better options available. And believe it or not, Google Photos has been around for an entire decade.
Since a decade of Google Photos is quite a feat, Google is celebrating the milestone with a brand new look for the Google Photos editor. The redesigned editor has a more simplified interface that puts all of the editing tools in a single place along with helpful edit suggestions to get the perfect photo.
In a single tap, you can select the subject, background, or any other part of the photo. With some help from AI, a menu containing several suggestions tailored for that particular area pops up, all designed to enhance that part of the image. Or if you want to edit the entire image, there are AI-powered suggestions that combine several effects for a quick and painless edit.
There are also new tools like Reimagine and Auto frame, which originally made their debut with the Magic Editor in the Pixel 9 series. These new tools can be found with the other manual adjustment tools like brightness and contrast. Reimagine utilizes generative AI to make a scene more ideal (turn a gloomy overcast sky into a sunny one), and Auto frame helps achieve the proper crop.
Ryan Haines / Android Authority
Reimagine in Magic Editor
Once you get those edits in, you’ll likely want to share those results quickly with others. If those people happen to be nearby, you can now share entire albums faster by generating a QR code for people to scan. Once someone scans the code, they’re able to view and even add photos to the album if needed.
So when are we getting all these new goodies? We got an early look at that QR code sharing feature in an APK teardown last month, but it’s now rolling out for all Google Photos users. For the redesigned Google Photos editor, however, it will begin landing on Android devices running Android 8 or newer in June, with iOS devices later this year.
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