Google Photos’ new Memories hope AI edits may persuade you to be online

Google Photos is pressing AI for a new Memories update, adding new Cinematic photos along with new collage designs and more. As with existing AI-powered editing and customization in Google Photos, new features can add movement, backgrounds, and other customizations to the images uploaded to the service.

Google Images, for example, has already created personalized videos for users, such as pets, travel, holidays or individuals. It can recommend editing for punchier colors or moodier monochromes, as well as auto-stitching panoramas from groups of shots.

Cinematic pictures promise to take still images and bring movement to them. To do this, Google Photos is tapping a computer that leans to predict layers of depth in the image, and then generates a 3D representation of the scene. Even if you didn’t take it with a deep-sensing sensor, like the Portrait mode.

With that info, the Cinematic photo can be added to the panning, a bit like a Ken Burns effect, but it can be generated automatically. The resulting image can be posted as a short video loop, says Google.

As for the latest collage designs, Google says they should be more esthetically pleasing thanks to the AI-powered style framework. This will try to create a color-based layout in the images you combine, and add it to things like font and context.

Finally, there are new themes for the Memories. This will highlight some people to start with, based on who appears to be the most likely to appear in your pictures, as Google Photos shows who is most relevant. Down the line, Google says, it’s going to extend the awareness to your favorite stuff, whether it’s a sport or just taking a lot of pictures of sunsets or other stuff.

It’s hard not to see these new features as part of Google Photos’ appeal for potentially dissatisfied customers, who may still feel some residual frustration after the company overturned its free backup offering earlier this year. Until now, Google Photos has permitted unrestricted uploads of compressed images and videos, but this will no longer be the case as of June 2021. Instead all uploads after that point – regardless of compression – will be counted against the user’s total Google storage allowance.

Although hardly shocking, the announcement left some users of Google Photos questioning if they should transfer their allegiance to the gallery elsewhere. Features like these new Memories, though are a nod to the fact that Google’s service isn’t just a stupid piece of storage, but might potentially make more useful use of the thousands of images you’re so easily forgotten about.

If that’s going to prove compelling – or whether pure apathy is going to stop people from exporting all their images from Google Photos next year and transferring them to rival services – remains to be seen. These new Memories features are going to roll out this month, Google says.

Google Images, for example, has already created personalized videos for users, such as pets, travel, holidays or individuals. It can recommend editing for punchier colors or moodier monochromes, as well as auto-stitching panoramas from groups of shots.

Cinematic pictures promise to take still images and bring movement to them. To do this, Google Photos is tapping a computer that leans to predict layers of depth in the image, and then generates a 3D representation of the scene. Even if you didn’t take it with a deep-sensing sensor, like the Portrait mode.

With that info, the Cinematic photo can be added to the panning, a bit like a Ken Burns effect, but it can be generated automatically. The resulting image can be posted as a short video loop, says Google.

As for the latest collage designs, Google says they should be more esthetically pleasing thanks to the AI-powered style framework. This will try to create a color-based layout in the images you combine, and add it to things like font and context.

Finally, there are new themes for the Memories. This will highlight some people to start with, based on who appears to be the most likely to appear in your pictures, as Google Photos shows who is most relevant. Down the line, Google says, it’s going to extend the awareness to your favorite stuff, whether it’s a sport or just taking a lot of pictures of sunsets or other stuff.

It’s hard not to see these new features as part of Google Photos’ appeal for potentially dissatisfied customers, who may still feel some residual frustration after the company overturned its free backup offering earlier this year. Until now, Google Photos has permitted unrestricted uploads of compressed images and videos, but this will no longer be the case as of June 2021. Instead all uploads after that point – regardless of compression – will be counted against the user’s total Google storage allowance.

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Although hardly shocking, the announcement left some users of Google Photos questioning if they should transfer their allegiance to the gallery elsewhere. Features like these new Memories, though are a nod to the fact that Google’s service isn’t just a stupid piece of storage, but might potentially make more useful use of the thousands of images you’re so easily forgotten about.

If that’s going to prove compelling – or whether pure apathy is going to stop people from exporting all their images from Google Photos next year and transferring them to rival services – remains to be seen. These new Memories features are going to roll out this month, Google says.