Google Photos update: Makes GIFs from videos automatically, and more

Google Photos, one of the most popular photo-saving cloud service right now, has gotten a new update which brings the ability to auto-rotate upside down photos, make GIFs automatically from videos and more. Google says Photos has over 200 million users per month, and just like other services from the technology giant, this one too relies on Machine learning to help organise your photos better. Here’s a look at the new features of Google Photos.

Google Photos also now has a feature which will help people “rediscover old memories of the people in your most recent photos.” It sounds similar to how Apple’s Photos app is creating stylised albums called Memories. Google’s blogpost says, “As your photo library continues to grow, we hope that features like this one make it easier to look back at your fondest memories.” If you have pictures with one particular person, like say your spouse in the recent weeks, Google Photos will now organise them together and show as one card.

Google will also show the recent highlights from your photos. For instance if you’ve taken too many pictures of your child over the last couple of months, it will appear in a card form.

Also read: Google Photos v2.0 update: Here are all the new features

Third, Google Photos will now make animations and GIFs from your videos as well. Google says it won’t just use any random video, but “segments that capture activity — a jump into the pool, or even just an adorable smile — and create short animations that are easy to share.” So clearly some thinking will go into making this GIFs.

Also Google Photos will now put all sideways photos right side up if it finds them in your collection. Might be helpful for older photos you might have in your digital collection from the pre-smartphone days.

Google says it is relying on Machine Learning to compute these tasks in the Photos apps, and these cards will show up on the Google Assistant tab in the app. Assistant is a separate tab at the bottom of the Google Photos apps, which can be tapped for help, and shows these automatically created cards.

Google Photos also lets users search for photos by subject. For instance, typing Cats or Dogs will show up all pictures with a cat or dog. Google Photos latest update will roll out for web, iOS and Android.