Google Photos is getting an AI update. The tech giant announced Wednesday that its AI-powered Magic Editor and a few other enhanced editing features, previously exclusive to Pixel devices or paid subscribers, will be free for all Google Photos users. This expansion also includes Google's Magic Eraser, which removes unwanted items from photos; Photo Unblur, which uses machine learning to sharpen blurry photos; Portrait Light, which lets you change the light source on photos after the fact, and more.

Historically, editing software has been one of the high-end features that Google has used to promote its flagship line of handsets, the Pixel phones, and to justify paying for Google's cloud storage subscription product, Google One. But in an increasingly commodified marketplace of AI-powered editing tools, it has opted to make its AI-powered photo editing capabilities free to nearly everyone.
 Strings attached to that, though:.

For a starter, they will only be rolled out from May 15 onwards and it will take weeks to be able to reach all Google Photos users.

Besides hardware device requirements for usability purposes, there are other additional requirements. For instance, on ChromeOS, one requires a Chromebook Plus with at least a version number of ChromeOS version 118+ and at least 3GB RAM. On mobile, one needs to run an Android 8.0 version or more or iOS 15 or more.
The organization also indicates that Pixel tablets will now be supported, as well.

Probably, the most important aspect of the group is Magic Editor, though; launched just recently with the release of Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro. The new editing tool uses generative AI, completing more complex photo edits - like filling in gaps within a given photo, changing the positioning of a subject and others to be moved to the fore or background of a photo. Magic Editor would let you transform a gray sky to blue, and with it, remove the people in the background of a picture, recenter the subject of the photo while filling gaps. And that's far from the other clutter removals and more.

It used to take a combination of using Magic Eraser and more professional editing software such as Photoshop if there was a thing you had accomplished like this. That would have all been quite manual, though, since this would not have been an AI-driven automated process.

With the rollout, Magic Editor is headed to Pixel devices and to iOS and Android users whose phones qualify-they'll get 10 Magic Editor saves monthly. For more, they'll have to buy a Premium Google One plan-that's 2TB of storage or better.

Other tools will be accessible to everyone with Google Photos and require no Google One subscription at all. The whole set of all the features, which will become available, includes Magic Eraser, Photo Unblur, Sky suggestions, Color pop, HDR effect for photos and videos, Portrait Blur, Portrait Light (plus the add light/balance light features in the tool), Cinematic Photos, Styles in the Collage Editor, and Video Effects.

Other features, though-for example, AI-powered Best Take, which combines similar shots of everyone flashing a smile to generate a single best shot-will remain Pixel 8 and 8 Pro exclusives.