You Can Now Ask Google Photos to Edit Your Images
The Google Pixel 10 series may have been the main event at today’s Made by Google event , but like everything Google has done lately, it’s worth noting the advances in artificial intelligence. This time around , Google Photos has an interesting new feature : you’ll be able to edit photos in the app using your voice. The company announced at the event that the feature will first be coming to the Pixel 10 in the U.S.
Google says the feature works in real time, and you’ll see the changes immediately as you ask Google Photos to make changes. This looks like it will make photo editing easier for those who aren’t skilled enough to do it themselves — just ask the app to create the effect you want, and it’ll do the rest, Google says.
Examples shared by Google include queries like “restore an old photo” or “remove cars in the background.” Both of these queries, if they work well, are much easier to implement with AI. Google says that for those who don’t know what changes they want, simpler voice commands like “make it better” will work as well. It also supports contextual suggestions, allowing you to make further changes to an image using voice commands.
During the Pixel 10 event, Google showed off a live demo of voice editing in action. Call Her Daddy podcast host Alex Cooper snapped a photo of Jimmy Fallon (of The Tonight Show fame) and asked Google Photos to fix the lighting and frame. The photo featured Cooper and Fallon, but a bright spotlight had blown out the lighting and the frame was asymmetrical. During the demo, Gemini was able to turn their photo into a well-lit one, and crop and rotate the image slightly to fix the frame.
However, this raises important ethical questions about the nature of photographs if Gemini creates elements that weren’t in the original image, or distorts colors when editing. Google has partly addressed this issue by adding support for C2PA content credentials in Google Photos, which allows you to see how an image was created and edited, and whether AI was used in the process, as shown here:
The Pixel 10 implements the C2PA content credential standard in its native camera app, and the feature will gradually roll out to other Android devices and Google Photos for iOS in the coming weeks.