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A new video editor, plus enhanced editing features

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Last year, we launched a new, more helpful photo editor in the Google Photos app on Android with easy-to-use granular adjustments and smart suggestions to help perfect your shots. Today, we’re adding even more editing capabilities to Google Photos so you can easily fine-tune your memories — no expertise needed.

First up, we’re introducing an updated video editor that has granular adjustments like our photo editor, so you can apply your own signature look to your videos. We’re also bringing more photo editing features previously only available on Pixel to Google One members. 

A new editor for your videos

With the new video editor, in addition to trimming, stabilizing and rotating your videos, you’ll now be able to crop, change perspective, add filters, apply granular edits (including brightness, contrast, saturation and warmth) and more. 

There are now more than 30 controls, but a good place to start is with cropping and straightening the frame to focus more on the subject. And if the scene is poorly exposed, you can adjust the brightness to make your video shine.

Animated GIF showing a phone with a video of a dog on the screen. The phone scrolls through granular edits to apply to the video.

The new video editing features will be rolling out to most Android users in the coming weeks. We’ll also bring the redesigned editor to iOS devices in the coming months.  

Enhanced editing features for Google One members

Starting today, we’re bringing some of the editing features currently available on Pixel to Google One members as a part of their membership. These effects transform your portraits using machine learning: with Portrait Blur, you can blur the background post-snap, and with Portrait Light, you can improve the lighting on faces in portraits. Both features work for photos just taken or images from the past — even if the original image wasn’t taken in portrait mode. 

Blur and Color Pop still work for photos with depth information (like photos captured in portrait mode) and anyone with Google Photos can use them at no cost. With today's update, Google One members can apply these effects to even more photos of people, including those without depth information, like old film scans or professional shots.

Here’s a film photo my parents took of me that Google Photos automatically suggested applying Portrait Blur and Portrait Light to:

Animated GIF showing a phone with an old photo of a baby on it while the Portrait Light setting is being applied to enhance the lighting.

Google One members will have access to other new machine learning-powered effects, too. Think of these as super filters that apply complex edits with just one tap. With the Dynamic suggestion, you can enhance brightness and contrast across the image where it's needed, so you get a dramatic, more balanced photo. And with sky suggestions, you can make your golden hour images pop by boosting and adjusting the color and contrast in the sky with one of several palettes inspired by breathtaking sunrises and sunsets. 

Animated GIF showing two photos of a beach; one is static while the other has new lighting effects applied to it that enhance it.

Portrait Blur and Portrait Light, along with Dynamic and sky suggestions, will roll out to Google One members over the next few days through the latest Google Photos app on Android devices. (Your device will need 3GB RAM and run Android 8.0 and above; learn more). 

A Google One membership starts at $1.99 per month in the U.S, for 100 GB of storage and also includes member benefits like premium support from Google experts, Google Store rewards, extended free trials to services like YouTube Premium and more. These editing features will still be available to Pixel users at no additional cost. 

So snap away — we’re here to help with the rest. 


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