The Convenience of Google Photos: Uncovering its Hidden Features

As I scrolled through my vacation photos on my Google Pixel phone, I couldn't help but notice that some shots were marred by unwanted elements. Whether it was a group of people photobombing my shot or objects that just kind of took away from the scene, I'd often find myself wishing there was a way to remove them. That's where the Magic Eraser feature comes in - a tool nestled within the Google Photos app that can help you clean up photos with just a couple of taps.

I've found that this feature is incredibly useful, especially when shooting popular places like tourist hotspots or crowded streets. Sometimes, it feels like there are too many people in the scene, and even if they're not intentionally trying to ruin your shot, their presence can be distracting. But with the Magic Eraser tool, I can simply tap on the object or person that's unwanted and let Google Photos do its thing. The feature processes the photo, highlights certain elements that need removing, and then allows me to manually tweak it using a brush or circle tool. While it's not perfect - sometimes the suggested edit can be too aggressive, leaving behind visual imperfections - it's still incredibly useful for quickly cleaning up photos without having to dig into a separate editing app.

One of the best things about this feature is that it's baked right into my phone's operating system, so I don't need any third-party downloads or apps. All I need is my Google Pixel phone and the Google Photos app, which makes it incredibly convenient to use on the go. Of course, there are some limitations - if I keep tapping the Magic Eraser feature on the same spot repeatedly, it can start to look a little weird - but overall, I've found that this tool has saved me from having to delete or heavily edit photos when they just didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped.

Another feature of Google Photos that's really impressed me is its "Unblur" tool. This feature takes blurry images and attempts to reconstruct them using machine learning algorithms to make them a little bit sharper. I've found this tool to be particularly useful when shooting in low-light conditions or capturing action shots with my kids running around - sometimes, the resulting photos are just too soft to be usable, but with Unblur, I can salvage them by applying a gentle touch of sharpening. It's amazing how much of a difference it can make, and I've found that even partially unblurred images can still look great.

While Unblur is certainly a powerful tool, I have to admit that sometimes it just doesn't work its magic - especially when the original image is severely over-exposed or has too much noise. In those cases, there's not much hope for rescue, but overall, I've found this feature to be incredibly useful for salvaging photos that might otherwise be lost forever.

One of the best things about Google Photos, in my opinion, is its ability to combine these features with social sharing. If I have friends or family members who are on different phones, I can easily send them their photos and edit them using the Magic Eraser or Unblur tool before sending them back. This has been a lifesaver for me when it comes to coordinating photo updates with loved ones - without this feature, I'd often find myself stuck in a cycle of editing and re-editing, trying to get the perfect shot.

Overall, I've found Google Photos to be an incredibly powerful and convenient app that's full of hidden gems like these. From the Magic Eraser tool to Unblur, there are so many features that make it easy to edit and enhance your photos without having to dig into a separate editing software or app. Whether you're a casual smartphone user or a serious photographer, I highly recommend giving Google Photos a try - you never know what hidden features you might discover!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis video is sponsored by Google so they wanted me to talk about the photography features of the Google pixel 7. specifically the Magic Eraser tool and the photo on blur tool and I thought wait a minute this will be perfect because I've used both of those tools extensively on my trip last year to Korea I just use them for a lot of the photos I took there so I thought the best way to do this video is just to show you how I use those things on that trip okay so let's start off with the Magic Eraser because this feature is one of the main reasons why I even brought this phone to Korea in the first place so it's a tool that uses machine learning to select unwanted or distracting elements in your photo and then removes them so when I was on the trip I would take a bunch of photos and then I'd be looking at them in the photos app just kind of looking at the shots I'd just taken and oftentimes I would find photos whether it was a person or a group of people or sometimes objects that just kind of took away from the shot and I'll just want that stuff gone so if you go to edit and then tools you can see the Magic Eraser feature and if you tap it it'll examine or kind of process your photo and then I'll make some suggestions by highlighting certain elements that you might want removed from the photos now sometimes the suggested edit Nails it right and the photo looks awesome right after it but sometimes it's overly aggressive sometimes it's not aggressive enough and it leaves objects or people behind that it thought you wanted in the photo but you can always adjust it manually you can go in you can Circle things or brush over them to remove it the manual tweaking doesn't have to be perfect like as long as it's roughly over the object the tool can use AI to fill in the area it can sometimes leave some visual imperfections but you're not pixel peeping your vacation photos right these are from memories and they're just better memories with cleaned up photos but overall I find this magic eraser tool to be really useful because oftentimes you just cannot take shots of stuff out there without a bunch of people in the scene just kind of photo bombing your shots it's not intentional right it's just the way that popular places are there's a lot of people and with this tool you can clean up a lot of photos with just a couple of TAPS right on your phone you don't need any kind of third-party downloads and that's the thing right you can do a lot of this stuff using like photoshop on a computer or just other apps you get on your phone but to have it baked into your phone on the stock Google photos app it's so convenient it's not perfect like sometimes it can leave behind some artifacts and if you magic erased the same spot over and over again it can start to look a little weird but more often than not you'll be able to use it to clean up images and it's non-destructive in the sense that if you're making the edits you can always undo it and even when you save that finalized edit it saves it as a new file it doesn't overwrite the original there's also a camouflage app in there so you can use to change the colors of specific objects they don't stand out as much it's more of a stylistic tool but again it's built right into the Google photos app okay the other feature that's really awesome is the photo on blur tool so this takes a blurry image and then it tries to reconstruct it using AI to make it a little bit sharper so so some of the photos I took in Korea came out a little soft either my kids were running around or I wasn't able to hold the camera perfectly still but they just weren't as sharp as I was hoping them to be but with this tool you can salvage some of them so if you want to sharpen up a blurry shot you go to edit and then tools and then there's an unblur tool and when you tap it it takes a couple seconds to analyze the shot and then it applies that machine learned unbluring so it applies it at full strength to start but you can dial it down depending on how much unbluring you want I do find that if you let it go to full blast it starts to look a little artificial depending on the shot so usually I have it turned down to like 60 to 70 at most now sometimes the unblurred shots come out awesome like this one this is one of my favorite picks from the trip and was salvaged from photo and blur but sometimes like this image here there's no hope the original image was just so cooked that there's no way you can save it but again these tools are baked right into the phone I think that's the best feature right you're already on your phone in the Google photos app looking at photos anyway and if you see something that just looks a little bit out of place and you want some tweaking the tools are right there the photo on blur or the Magic Eraser tool or some of us both at the same time if you need them they're very powerful tools but these camera features are also available on any other Google pixel phone you can use that link above to go directly to the Google photos app and play around with it there also all this stuff can be done with other people's photos like if you have family or friends that are on different phones they can send you their photos you can do the tweaks on your device and then send them back I did that a lot when I was in Korea okay there you have it if you want more information about any of the stuff I've talked about or the phone itself it'll be linked Down Below in the description okay thanks for watching foreignthis video is sponsored by Google so they wanted me to talk about the photography features of the Google pixel 7. specifically the Magic Eraser tool and the photo on blur tool and I thought wait a minute this will be perfect because I've used both of those tools extensively on my trip last year to Korea I just use them for a lot of the photos I took there so I thought the best way to do this video is just to show you how I use those things on that trip okay so let's start off with the Magic Eraser because this feature is one of the main reasons why I even brought this phone to Korea in the first place so it's a tool that uses machine learning to select unwanted or distracting elements in your photo and then removes them so when I was on the trip I would take a bunch of photos and then I'd be looking at them in the photos app just kind of looking at the shots I'd just taken and oftentimes I would find photos whether it was a person or a group of people or sometimes objects that just kind of took away from the shot and I'll just want that stuff gone so if you go to edit and then tools you can see the Magic Eraser feature and if you tap it it'll examine or kind of process your photo and then I'll make some suggestions by highlighting certain elements that you might want removed from the photos now sometimes the suggested edit Nails it right and the photo looks awesome right after it but sometimes it's overly aggressive sometimes it's not aggressive enough and it leaves objects or people behind that it thought you wanted in the photo but you can always adjust it manually you can go in you can Circle things or brush over them to remove it the manual tweaking doesn't have to be perfect like as long as it's roughly over the object the tool can use AI to fill in the area it can sometimes leave some visual imperfections but you're not pixel peeping your vacation photos right these are from memories and they're just better memories with cleaned up photos but overall I find this magic eraser tool to be really useful because oftentimes you just cannot take shots of stuff out there without a bunch of people in the scene just kind of photo bombing your shots it's not intentional right it's just the way that popular places are there's a lot of people and with this tool you can clean up a lot of photos with just a couple of TAPS right on your phone you don't need any kind of third-party downloads and that's the thing right you can do a lot of this stuff using like photoshop on a computer or just other apps you get on your phone but to have it baked into your phone on the stock Google photos app it's so convenient it's not perfect like sometimes it can leave behind some artifacts and if you magic erased the same spot over and over again it can start to look a little weird but more often than not you'll be able to use it to clean up images and it's non-destructive in the sense that if you're making the edits you can always undo it and even when you save that finalized edit it saves it as a new file it doesn't overwrite the original there's also a camouflage app in there so you can use to change the colors of specific objects they don't stand out as much it's more of a stylistic tool but again it's built right into the Google photos app okay the other feature that's really awesome is the photo on blur tool so this takes a blurry image and then it tries to reconstruct it using AI to make it a little bit sharper so so some of the photos I took in Korea came out a little soft either my kids were running around or I wasn't able to hold the camera perfectly still but they just weren't as sharp as I was hoping them to be but with this tool you can salvage some of them so if you want to sharpen up a blurry shot you go to edit and then tools and then there's an unblur tool and when you tap it it takes a couple seconds to analyze the shot and then it applies that machine learned unbluring so it applies it at full strength to start but you can dial it down depending on how much unbluring you want I do find that if you let it go to full blast it starts to look a little artificial depending on the shot so usually I have it turned down to like 60 to 70 at most now sometimes the unblurred shots come out awesome like this one this is one of my favorite picks from the trip and was salvaged from photo and blur but sometimes like this image here there's no hope the original image was just so cooked that there's no way you can save it but again these tools are baked right into the phone I think that's the best feature right you're already on your phone in the Google photos app looking at photos anyway and if you see something that just looks a little bit out of place and you want some tweaking the tools are right there the photo on blur or the Magic Eraser tool or some of us both at the same time if you need them they're very powerful tools but these camera features are also available on any other Google pixel phone you can use that link above to go directly to the Google photos app and play around with it there also all this stuff can be done with other people's photos like if you have family or friends that are on different phones they can send you their photos you can do the tweaks on your device and then send them back I did that a lot when I was in Korea okay there you have it if you want more information about any of the stuff I've talked about or the phone itself it'll be linked Down Below in the description okay thanks for watching foreign\n"