- Starting from May, Google will make Magic Eraser, Photo Unblur, and other editing tools available for free to all Google Photos users.
- The notable feature Magic Editor will require iOS and Android users to subscribe Premium Google One Plan to access additional storage.
- Some tools with advanced functions such as Best Take will remain limited to specific users.
Google announced on Wednesday that a handful of upgraded editing tools previously limited to Pixel devices and paid subscribers will now access all Google Photos users for free.
More users will get access to Google’s editing tools
The editing tools used to be a selling point for Google’s high-end devices, and are limited to Pixel devices and paid subscribers. However, as a growing number of AI-powered editing tools emerged in the market, the tech giant decided to make their editing features available to more people at no charge. The opened tools include AI-powered Magic Editor, Google’s Magic Eraser, Photo Unblur and so on.
Magic Editor is the most notable one in the group. It leverages generative AI to do more complex photo edits, such as filling in gaps in a photo, repositioning the subject and other edits to the foreground or background of a photo.
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There are still some limits for some users
No subscription is required for most of the tools. But for Magic Editor, iOS and Android users will get 10 Magic Editor saves per month. And they need to buy a Premium Google One plan, which allows them to have 2 TB of storage and above.
There are also some hardware device requirements to use the tools. For example, On ChromeOS, the device must be a Chromebook Plus with ChromeOS version 118+ or have at least 3GB RAM. On mobile, the device must run Android 8.0 or higher or iOS 15 or higher.
Other features like the AI-powered Best Take, which merges similar photos to create a single best shot where everyone is smiling, will continue to remain exclusive to Pixel 8 and 8 Pro, according to TechCrunch.
The tools will start rolling out on May 15 and it will take weeks for them to make it to all Google Photo users.
