Google Photos Turns 10 With Major Editor Redesign, QR Code Sharing

Google Photos was announced at I/O 2015 and the company is now celebrating the app’s 10th birthday with a redesign of the photo editor.

Google is redesigning the Photos editor so that it “provides helpful suggestions and puts all our powerful editing tools in one place.”

It starts with a new fullscreen viewer that places the date, time, and location at the top of your screen. Meanwhile, it’s now Share, Edit, Add to (instead of Lens), and Trash at the bottom.

Once editing, Google Photos has moved controls for aspect ratio, flip, and rotate to be above the image. In the top-left corner, we have Auto Frame, which debuted in Magic Editor on the Pixel 9, to fill-in backgrounds and is now coming to more devices. 

Underneath, we get options for Enhance, Dynamic, and “AI Enhance” in the Auto tab. That’s followed by Lighting, Color, and Composition, as well as a search shortcut.

You can use AI-powered suggestions that combine multiple effects for quick edits in a variety of tailored options, or you can tap specific parts of an image to get suggested tools for editing that area.

The editor allows you to circle or “tap specific parts of an image to get suggested tools for editing that area.”  This includes the subject, background, or some other aspect. You then see the Blur background, Add portrait light, Sharpen, Move and Reimagine appear in the example below. We also see the redesigned sliders throughout this updated interface. 

This Google Photos editor redesign “will begin rolling out globally to Android devices next month, with iOS following later this year.” We already know the app is set for a Material 3 Expressive redesign.

Meanwhile, Google Photos is starting to roll out the ability to share albums with a QR code. This method makes for easy viewing and adding with people nearby. Google even suggests printing it out when in (physical) group settings. 

The company shared today that over 1.5 billion people use Google Photos each month and that over 9 trillion photos and videos have been stored. Each month, there are:

• 210 million edited photos 
• 370 million searches
• 440 million shared memories

Looking past the 10th birthday, the Google Photos team says it will “continue pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with AI, unlocking new ways to relive, connect with and share memories.”

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