You may remember earlier this year, Google announced a feature called “Ask Photos” during its Google I/O event. We have discovered a Google Photos extension for Gemini that could be related to that very feature.

While digging into the Google app (beta version 15.33.36.29.arm64), we stumbled upon a few interesting lines of code. Specifically, there’s a mention of an “ask photos” extension for Gemini. You can see the lines of code we found below.

<string name="assistant_robin_action_ask_photos_single_image_content_description">Google Photos Image</string>
<string name="assistant_photos_card_a11y_description">Results from Google Photos extension</string>
<string name="assistant_photos_card_title_string">Google Photos</string>
<string name="assistant_photos_icon_content_description">Google Photos icon</string>

Just as a refresher, “robin” is the internal codename for Gemini. Based on the code we found, it seems like the extension could have a lot in common with the Ask Photos feature for the Google Photos app.

As Google explained back in May, this feature would allow you to interact with your photo library through natural language queries. For example, Gemini would search through photos containing car license plates if you were to ask it something like, “What’s my license plate number?” Ask Photos’s functionality was also said to extend past basic search functionality, being capable of tasks like organizing and sharing photos.

It appears this ask photos extension is fairly early in development, so don’t expect it to roll out anytime soon. We’ll have to wait a little longer to get more clues about this feature.

Google introduced Ultra HDR with the Pixel 8 series, though it has since made its way to a growing range of higher-end Android flagships. Ultra HDR works similarly to a JPEG image but adds an embedded HDR gaming map in the metadata. While Google might have been the first to bring us the feature on Android, Google Photos ironically doesn’t play nice with it. At least, until now.

Previously performing photo edits on an Ultra HDR image would strip it of its Ultra HDR technology, but as first spotted by Artem Russakovskii on X, this is no longer the case for basic edits.

You can now perform actions like cropping and rotating without losing Ultra HDR in the process. Artem notes that he’s rocking a Pixel 8 Pro with version 6.95.0.663027175. A quick look at the comments in his post confirms this is working for others as well.

Google has had more than its fair share of issues with HDR photos in its Google Photo app, not just Ultra HDR. In the past HDR images in Google Photos would strip all brightness data that enabled high dynamic range, which led Google to make a workaround where it would duplicate edited HDR photos as copies instead of overwriting the original. Since then, Google has fixed the problem for HDR though it continues to create duplicates.

For its part, Google has previously said (via Android Police) it is aware that the way it handles HDR and Ultra HDR is far from perfect and it said it was working to improve the problem. With this latest update, it seems Google is starting to make good on this promise.

Update, August 20, 2024 (07:25 AM ET): Google is finally rolling out the “Show less” option to hide unwanted faces from surfacing Memories without completely blocking them from group photos. Google has a new support page that explains the difference between the Block and Show less options. People who are Blocked will not appear in memories or group photos, while the Show less option will hide them from memories but keep them around in group photos.

Original article, May 1, 2024 (03:30 AM ET): Google Photos has several neat features that make it one of the best photo storage apps around. The service has an uncanny ability to spot faces, and it gets it right most of the time, even in very challenging situations. These faces are then used for several features, like People Search and Memories. But sometimes, as your life evolves, you’d want to see less of some faces, especially in Memories. Google Photos is preparing to make that happen, giving you more control of which faces you see regularly through the Memories feature.

Android Authority contributor Assemble Debug spotted an upcoming feature in Google Photos v6.81.0.628906483. You will soon be able to use a “Show less” option to have a face not show up in your Memories but still be visible in your group photos. This appears to be a milder version of the “Block face” option, which makes faces completely disappear from Memories and group photos.

The “People & Pets” section in Google Photos, where you name the faces that appear in your photos, will have a new “Hide face from memories” section, as you can see in the first screenshot above. Adding a face to the section will open the dialog box in the second screenshot.

A new settings flow will also be created to accommodate the change. You will be able to access it through Settings > Preferences > Memories > Hide people & pets.

This new feature is not currently live within the app. Google is currently testing the feature within the app, so it may roll out in the future. It’s not clear if and when this rolls out, but considering its utility in keeping some unpleasant memories away, we hope to see it roll out soon.

Google is constantly bringing new features to Google Photos, giving you more tools to edit desired snaps. What if you need to edit a photo you just saw in your Memories? Well, the company is working on an easier way to edit these older snaps.

An Android Authority teardown of the Google Photos app (version 6.93) has revealed that Google could bring an edit button to photos in Memories. That means you can quickly edit an old photo by tapping the Edit icon directly in Memories. That’s much easier than the current solution, which sees you tap the three-dot-menu > View day, scroll to the relevant photo in your timeline, and then tap the Edit icon. Check out the first image below, which shows the newly added Edit icon.

Our video below also gives a better idea of how this editing shortcut works in Memories. More specifically, tapping the icon takes you to the usual editing menu, featuring a host of tools for you to play with.

In any event, this would be a great timesaver if you frequently share old photos. It’s also a very convenient addition if you’d like to quickly try out more modern editing features (e.g. Magic Editor) on older images.

This isn’t the only upcoming Google Photos feature we’ve uncovered in recent days. We also discovered that Google is working on an “enhance photo” button in the sharing menu prior to actually sharing a snap. We also uncovered a “Show more” option for faces, allowing you to see more of a specific face.

Google is constantly bringing new features to Google Photos, giving you more tools to edit desired snaps. What if you need to edit a photo you just saw in your Memories? Well, the company is working on an easier way to edit these older snaps.

An Android Authority teardown of the Google Photos app (version 6.93) has revealed that Google could bring an edit button to photos in Memories. That means you can quickly edit an old photo by tapping the Edit icon directly in Memories. That’s much easier than the current solution, which sees you tap the three-dot-menu > View day, scroll to the relevant photo in your timeline, and then tap the Edit icon. Check out the first image below, which shows the newly added Edit icon.

Our video below also gives a better idea of how this editing shortcut works in Memories. More specifically, tapping the icon takes you to the usual editing menu, featuring a host of tools for you to play with.

In any event, this would be a great timesaver if you frequently share old photos. It’s also a very convenient addition if you’d like to quickly try out more modern editing features (e.g. Magic Editor) on older images.

This isn’t the only upcoming Google Photos feature we’ve uncovered in recent days. We also discovered that Google is working on an “enhance photo” button in the sharing menu prior to actually sharing a snap. We also uncovered a “Show more” option for faces, allowing you to see more of a specific face.

Thanks to cross-platform availability, handy editing tools, seamless sharing, and AI add-ons, Google Photos is the best app to manage your ever-growing media library. While Google Photos is free to download and use, the backup storage isn't. You get 15GB of free space, which is spread across Gmail, Google Drive, and device backups. While it's sufficient to get started with Google's services, you will run out of space soon if you snap and back up a lot of pictures and videos using one of the best camera phones.

Google Photos is still the king of photo backup services, and the company is constantly bringing new features and editing tools to the platform. Now, it looks like Google is planning a significant revamp of the sharing page.

Capturing and saving memories is easier now than it's ever been before. Most modern smartphones have very capable cameras, and they're small enough to fit into a pocket. But as good as these cameras are, there's always something you might want to tweak, crop, or change entirely, and photo editing apps let you do just that. While there are apps for editing on smartphones, computers still offer more capable experiences most of the time, and we've rounded up some of the best apps you can use for photo editing on Windows.

Google Photos has several neat features that make it one of the best photo storage apps around where you can upload all your photos. Many people also use it as their primary photo management app (aka the default Gallery app), but there’s room for improvement here. And then there are people who use Google Photos as both, for storage and for viewing all their photos. If you fall in the second category, then there’s an important new feature that is coming soon to Google Photos that will let you back up photos from other apps while still keeping your primary Photos feed clean of unnecessary clutter.

To understand the change, one must understand the current behavior. Google Photos’ primary Photos view displays all your photos present and backed up in the DCIM folder. If you want to view photos that are present outside of the DCIM folder, i.e., media generated by other apps, then you can view those at Library > Photos on device, arranged by the respective device folders.

If you want to back up any of these folders, you can manually turn on the backup, with the caveat that these photos and images will now also show up in the primary Photos view. So if you turn on backup for the WhatsApp or Office Lens folders, for example, the images (including GIFs, user-generated stickers, scanned documents etc) present will show up alongside your camera photos in the DCIM folder.

Android Authority contributor Assemble Debug spotted an upcoming feature in Google Photos v6.813.

In the future, Photos settings will have a dedicated “Photos view” section, which will house settings for photo stacking, photos from other apps, and layout. The Photos from other apps section is new, and as the name implies, you will soon be able to customize whether backed-up images from other apps show up in your primary Photos feed.

Photos from other apps will give you four options: Show all, Hide clutter, Show none, and Custom. Show all will show all backed-up images in your primary Photos view. Hide clutter will hide lower-priority content like GIFs and memes from the Photos view. Show none will show no backed-up images from other apps (while those images continue to be backed up).

The Custom option lets you individually set the preference for specific third-party apps. This setting is available for WhatsApp for now, but it’s fair to presume that support for other apps will be available in the future.

The benefit of these changes is that you can back up media from other apps while still retaining visibility control for your primary Photos view. All backed-up content remains searchable within Photos, so there are other ways to access the images.

Backed-up images from other apps will bear the relevant tag, so you can view those details on secondary devices and hide those photos there, too. We presume that a similar setting will be available on Google Photos on the web too.

This new feature is not currently live within the app. Google is currently testing it within the app, so it may roll out in the future. It’s not clear if and when this will roll out, but considering its utility in keeping your Photos view organized, we hope to see it roll out soon.

Your phone’s gallery has a lot of personal and sensitive content that you probably don’t want random people to have access to. Unfortunately, a lot of apps request access to your entire media gallery even though they might only need access to one or two items to do their job. Google created the Photo Picker API in Android 13 to solve this problem. The Photo Picker lets users choose exactly which media items to share with an app, making it more private by design. However, many developers have chosen to not use Android’s Photo Picker for various reasons.

One reason that many developers eschewed the Photo Picker is that it’s missing a lot of features compared to the older system file picker it’s replacing. One of those features — cloud media support — was finally added not too long ago, meaning users can finally select media from their Google Photos libraries. But there’s still one more issue with the Photo Picker that cloud media integration only exacerbated: the lack of search.

Currently, the Photo Picker has two tabs: “Photos” and “Albums”. The Photos tab shows your photos and videos in reverse chronological order, while the Albums tab shows what’s in your Camera, Videos, Screenshots, Downloads, and Favorites albums. Unless you store tens of thousands of images locally, you probably won’t have trouble finding the exact photo or video you want to share using the Photo Picker. If you have a massive cloud media library like I do, though, then you’ll either need to be really organized with albums or hope you can quickly find the item you’re looking for while scrolling through your entire library.

It’s a huge bummer the Photo Picker doesn’t just let you search through your local and cloud libraries, especially since, well, it’s made by Google of all companies. Fortunately, Google will rectify this problem in an upcoming update to the Photo Picker. During the second day of Google I/O 2024, the company confirmed that the Photo Picker will support both local and cloud search. This is coming “later this year” apparently, but we don’t know exactly when.

When search support does roll out, it’ll hopefully be made available on all OS versions where the Photo Picker is available. The Photo Picker is available natively on all devices running Android 11 and newer through a Project Mainline module, but it’s also available on devices running Android 4.4 and newer thanks to Google Play Services. Hopefully the search bar in the Photo Picker will be as smart as the new AI-powered “Ask Photos” feature that Google unveiled the other day, but it’s unlikely that’ll be the case.

Google kicked off its annual Google I/O developer conference today with a two hour keynote where pretty much the only thing the company talked about was AI. But there were a lot of AI features to talk about. In the short term, the Circle to Search feature that’s now available on 100 million Android devices now helps […]

The post Lilbits: Google I/O Day one is all about AI, Netflix apps for Windows to disable downloads appeared first on Liliputing.

When using the Google Photos app, you can choose whether you want to back up a folder or not. The problem is, however, this has to be done manually for each folder you want to be saved in the cloud. But if you wish this could be done automatically, you may soon get your wish.

Android Authority discovered that the latest version of the Google Photos app (v6.81.0.628906483) appears to introduce a new “Back up new folders” feature. The feature appears as an on/off toggle and is accompanied by a description that reads “Automatically turn on backup when a new folder is added.”

Google Photos has several neat features that make it one of the best photo storage apps around. The service has an uncanny ability to spot faces, and it gets it right most of the time, even in very challenging situations. These faces are then used for several features, like People Search and Memories. But sometimes, as your life evolves, you’d want to see less of some faces, especially in Memories. Google Photos is preparing to make that happen, giving you more control of which faces you see regularly through the Memories feature.

Android Authority contributor Assemble Debug spotted an upcoming feature in Google Photos v6.81.0.628906483. You will soon be able to use a “Show less” option to have a face not show up in your Memories but still be visible in your group photos. This appears to be a milder version of the “Block face” option, which makes faces completely disappear from Memories and group photos.

Google Photos is preparing to add a new video editing feature that will allow you to enhance your videos by tapping a single button. Android Authority contributor Assemble Debug spotted the feature in the Google Photos app version 6.81.0.628906483. It’s not currently available to everyone, but the tipster managed to make it work with some clever workarounds.

Magic Editor, Photo Unblur, Magic Eraser and more enhanced editing features are coming to all Google Photos users — no subscription required.

What was launched as a Pixel exclusive, then extended into paid Google One territory, will soon be free for every Google Photos user starting May 15th.

You can now unblur photos, relight, move objects, magic erase an ex or a photo bomber, add portrait lighting, and probably a host of other features not listed.

Additionally non-Pixel owners get 10 saves a month from the Magic Editor (more if you have a Pixel or Google One subscription). Here you can reposition people, change the environment, and otherwise do neat stuff.

While I’m quite happy all of this is free now, it does go to show that all that Tensor-AI chip marketing was probably for show as this appears to be entirely server side editing (I’ve often wondered if the Tensor chip has done anything other than made Google Keyboard astonishingly quick at mishearing what I say).

Glad to see Google doing this, but now wonder what they’re going to Pixel exclusive for their next phone.

45 days or so from now… kind of a long time for an announcement from Google for a freebie.

AI tools peeps bought Pixels for soon available to all Google Photos users free by Paul E King first appeared on Pocketables.

The Library tab in the Google Photos app is where you can go to look at your albums, check your on-device folders for images, and access shortcuts (Favorites, Utilities, Archive, and Trash). But it looks like the Library tab could undergo a big shift that will change the tab’s name and its UI.

In an APK teardown of the Photos app, conducted by 9to5Google, it was discovered that Google may be working on a redesign for the Library tab. The outlet was able to enable the redesign, which appears to relabel the Library tab to Collections.

In addition to the name change, the page itself has gone through some changes as well. While all four shortcuts are still available and present at the top of the page, they appear more rounded and ovular than before. There are also three additional shortcuts that are located at the bottom of the page which include “Screenshots,” “Videos,” and “Recently Added.”

The biggest change, however, is the absence of the on-device carousel that was located right under the shortcuts. Instead, the Collections tab turns the on-device carousel into a card that’s joined by four others including “People,” “Albums,” “Documents,” and “Places.” Each card shows a preview of the items they contain.

According to the publication, some of these cards offer the same experience as you get when you navigate to the Search tab. However, some do offer a significantly different experience. It seems the goal of this redesign was to clean up some of the clutter that clogging up the tab.

Speaking of clutter, it was also discovered today in a report from PiunikaWeb that there are strings of code for a “hide clutter” option. This option would hide backed-up photos like screenshots, GIFs, and memes from your main Photos tabs.

Magic Editor, Photo Unblur, Magic Eraser and more enhanced editing features are coming to all Google Photos users — no subscription required.

What was launched as a Pixel exclusive, then extended into paid Google One territory, will soon be free for every Google Photos user starting May 15th.

You can now unblur photos, relight, move objects, magic erase an ex or a photo bomber, add portrait lighting, and probably a host of other features not listed.

Additionally non-Pixel owners get 10 saves a month from the Magic Editor (more if you have a Pixel or Google One subscription). Here you can reposition people, change the environment, and otherwise do neat stuff.

While I’m quite happy all of this is free now, it does go to show that all that Tensor-AI chip marketing was probably for show as this appears to be entirely server side editing (I’ve often wondered if the Tensor chip has done anything other than made Google Keyboard astonishingly quick at mishearing what I say).

Glad to see Google doing this, but now wonder what they’re going to Pixel exclusive for their next phone.

45 days or so from now… kind of a long time for an announcement from Google for a freebie.

AI tools peeps bought Pixels for soon available to all Google Photos users free by Paul E King first appeared on Pocketables.

The Library tab in the Google Photos app is where you can go to look at your albums, check your on-device folders for images, and access shortcuts (Favorites, Utilities, Archive, and Trash). But it looks like the Library tab could undergo a big shift that will change the tab’s name and its UI.

In an APK teardown of the Photos app, conducted by 9to5Google, it was discovered that Google may be working on a redesign for the Library tab. The outlet was able to enable the redesign, which appears to relabel the Library tab to Collections.

In addition to the name change, the page itself has gone through some changes as well. While all four shortcuts are still available and present at the top of the page, they appear more rounded and ovular than before. There are also three additional shortcuts that are located at the bottom of the page which include “Screenshots,” “Videos,” and “Recently Added.”

The biggest change, however, is the absence of the on-device carousel that was located right under the shortcuts. Instead, the Collections tab turns the on-device carousel into a card that’s joined by four others including “People,” “Albums,” “Documents,” and “Places.” Each card shows a preview of the items they contain.

According to the publication, some of these cards offer the same experience as you get when you navigate to the Search tab. However, some do offer a significantly different experience. It seems the goal of this redesign was to clean up some of the clutter that clogging up the tab.

Speaking of clutter, it was also discovered today in a report from PiunikaWeb that there are strings of code for a “hide clutter” option. This option would hide backed-up photos like screenshots, GIFs, and memes from your main Photos tabs.

Google Photos allows you to back up photos and videos shot on your phone, but it also lets you back up other folders such as screenshots, memes, and more. This can lead to a rather messy view in the main Photos tab, but it sounds like Google has a solution up its sleeve.

PiunikaWeb reports that version 6.79.0.624777117 of Google Photos contains strings for a “hide clutter” option. So what does that actually mean?

“Backed-up photos like screenshots, GIFs, and memes are hidden,” reads another string.

In other words, this option should go a long way to cleaning up your main Photos tab if you’ve got a ton of saved screenshots, images from chats, and memes. But you’ll still be able to find these images in their respective folders.

This isn’t the only tweak coming to Google Photos, as the outlet reports that the Memories page is getting a redesign (seen above, right image). Furthermore, US users can apparently toggle AI-powered title suggestions for memories.

Either way, the combination of this “hide clutter” option and the previously launched Photo Stacks feature means you’ve got two solid ways to clean up your Google Photos feed.

Magic Editor, Photo Unblur, Magic Eraser and more enhanced editing features are coming to all Google Photos users — no subscription required.

What was launched as a Pixel exclusive, then extended into paid Google One territory, will soon be free for every Google Photos user starting May 15th.

You can now unblur photos, relight, move objects, magic erase an ex or a photo bomber, add portrait lighting, and probably a host of other features not listed.

Additionally non-Pixel owners get 10 saves a month from the Magic Editor (more if you have a Pixel or Google One subscription). Here you can reposition people, change the environment, and otherwise do neat stuff.

While I’m quite happy all of this is free now, it does go to show that all that Tensor-AI chip marketing was probably for show as this appears to be entirely server side editing (I’ve often wondered if the Tensor chip has done anything other than made Google Keyboard astonishingly quick at mishearing what I say).

Glad to see Google doing this, but now wonder what they’re going to Pixel exclusive for their next phone.

45 days or so from now… kind of a long time for an announcement from Google for a freebie.

AI tools peeps bought Pixels for soon available to all Google Photos users free by Paul E King first appeared on Pocketables.

Why do goths take photographs of themselves up trees? Goths Up Trees collects the best examples. The latest entry confirms that the phenomenon has been going on for decades.

Some nice goth type whose name I can't locate submitted this photo with the comment "It was Scotland circa 1988.

— Read the rest

The post Photos of goths up trees appeared first on Boing Boing.

Managing and handling data has become a significant concern in today’s technology-driven world. Nowadays, we use smart devices for a lot of things from capturing ...

The post How to Transfer Photos From Google Photos to Gallery And Free Up Space appeared first on Gizchina.com.