Google Photos now recognizes your cats and dogs

Google Photos is one of most popular smartphone apps out there, used by over 500 million users. One of the main highlight of Google Photos' is its ability to accurately identify faces of people in photos and group them together, thanks to machine learning. 

That said, Google is rolling out the same ability for cats and dogs allowing you to easily recognize their photos, a handy feature for pet lovers.With the new addition the 'People' section in the Albums, which shows all of the faces photos is being renamed as 'People & Pets'. In this section, in addition to friends and family, you will now find photos of your cats and dogs as well. 

You'll still be able to do everything you do with photos of human, like label your pets by name, find photos of them, and even find photos of you and your pet together. You can even create movies or even a photo book of your pet as well.

Google says it is rolling the new feature in most countries. 

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Google Photos gets Suggested Sharing, Shared Libraries and Photo Books

Google introduced Google Photos app two year ago. Now Google at its I/O event announced that Photos is being used by more than 500 million people every month, backing up more than 1.2 billion photos and videos per day.

The search-giant also announced three new features for Google Photos aimed at making sharing easy: Suggested Sharing, Shared Libraries and Photo Books.

Suggested sharing lets you share and receive all photos that really matters to you. Using machine learning technology, Google Photos automatically select the right photos, and even suggest who you should send them to based on who was in the photos. Then just tap to send the photos, and your friends and family will see them, and get a reminder to add theirs too.

You'll see your sharing activities and these suggestion in the new Sharing tab, which will roll out on Android, iOS and web in the coming weeks.

With Shared Libraries, you can effortlessly and automatically send and receive photos with one other person, by giving them access, to you full photo library, or only photos of certain people or from a certain date forward. Similarly, when other share their library with you, you can automatically save the photo you want, so they also show up in search and in the movies, collages and other fun creations folder. This feature will also be rolling on Android, iOS and web in the coming weeks.

Lastly, Photo Books, as the name suggests, makes it easier to create printed photo album with the help of Google Photos within few minutes. Google says "Photo books are incredibly easy to make—even on your phone. They’re beautiful, high quality, with a clean and modern design." Once you have selected the photos, Google Photos will find the best shots for you using machine learning, removing duplicates and poor quality images, and transform them into physical giftable books.

Photo Books are rolling out today in the US on web, and on Android and iOS next week starting at $9.99 for a 20-page softcover book, and $19.99 for a hardcover book. Google also plans to bring Photo Books to more countries soon.

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Google Photos will now stabilize shaky videos on Android

Google is updating its Google Photos app with a new handy feature called video stabilization. The new feature will let you stabilize shaky videos or reduce blur in the video that you have captured using your smartphone. The process will happen locally within the Google Photos app.

To access the video stabilization feature, you'll have to go the Videos tab on the Albums page. Then, open a video, and tap on the edit icon (at the bottom) which will show 'Rotate' and the new "Stabilization" option.

Tapping on the stabilization option, will start processing the video to make it less shaky. Also a progress bar will appear, that will show you the stabilization progress. Once the process is finished, the Stabilize button will change to "Stabilized" and will turn blue. It's worth mentioning that the process will take time depending on the device, length and quality of the video.

The Stabilization feature is available in the Google Photos app v2.13. It is currently available for Android and it is unknown, if Google plans to roll out the feature to iOS.

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Google Photos gets smarter photo albums

Google has updated its Photos app for Android, iOS and web bringing smarter photo albums. After an event or trip, Photos will show you an automatically create an album, which includes curated videos and photos of the best shots you took.

It will also add maps to show how far you have traveled and pin locations to the places you have been. You will also be able to personalize these albums by adding text captions and turn on collaboration, so that your friends and family members can add their photos as well. After the album is created, a Google Map of your journey as a title card will be added.

The customization with maps, location pins and text works for all albums, including those created manually.

Google says that the update is now being rolled out to Android, iOS and web.  

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Google Photos for Android revamped with easier navigation, gets new editing tools on the web

Google is rolling out an update to Google Photos that brings improved design and performance enhancements. The Photos app v1.5 brings with it a bottom navigation bar which lets you easily move between Assistant, Photos and Album views.

After the update Collection will be renamed to "Albums" and now comes with a scrolling carousel on top, giving you easy access to shared albums, peoples, places, things, animation, collages, movies and device folder.

Google said that the changes will be available for iOS users too in the coming days.

Google also updated the web version of photos - photos.google.com, and now gets new editing tools that should help users edit images faster. You can now swipe between images while staying in editing mode. The edits will save automatically and can be undone by clicking "Revert to Original". The update also brings a new aspect ratio selector that lets you get an exact crop, and lets you choose from Original, Square, 16:8 and 4:3.

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Google Photos gets Chromecast support, shared albums and labeling features

Google at its event on Tuesday announced three new features for Google Photos along with improvements as well.  The new features are aimed at making it easier for users to share pictures with family and friends. 

First up, Google Photos now supports Chromecast, making it possible for users to beam the photos to the big screen. An icon will apppear at the top right corner of the photos app on your smartphone when you are on a WiFi network shared by a chromecast. Tap the icon and then on the photo to broadcast it to the screen. Photo apps will also allow you to choose which photo you want to display, in case you don't want to cast a specific private photo.

Next is the 'Shared Albums' feature. Once you have shared an album with our friends or family, they will get an option to follow updates by pressing the 'Join' button. They will also be able to add photos from their own album. When someone adds a photo to the shared album, you will receive a notification. This feature will be rolled out in a later update.

Lastly, Photo app gets a new labeling feature.With this feature you can tag specific people in your photos, using whatever name you want. By doing this you can then search for photos faster using that label within Google photos. Google's image recognition technology helps find pictures based on keywords, and uses the labels you assign as well. 

Chromecast support and People labeling feature will be available on the Google Photos app starting this week, while the Shared Album feature will roll out later this year and works between Android and iOS devices as well as web.

Google announces new Photos app with unlimited photo and video storage

Google at its annual I/O developer conference, announced Google Photos, a new standalone photo storage service where you can backup and store unlimited, high-quality photos and videos for free. Google Photos will be available for iOS, Android and Web.

Users can store photos up to 16MP in size, videos up to 1080p which is sufficient for most users. The app also stores compressed versions of the photos and videos in print-quality resolution.You can enable an automatic back up and sync over WiFi or data, or else you can do it manually.

Google Photos automatically organizes you clicked photos by grouping them into people, places and things that matter. There is no need to tag, label or create albums for the photos. You can just type in the search box to find a particular photo. The app also help users quickly enhance photos and combine them in new ways.The app lets you pinch and zoom to view your images by week month or year.

You can group your images into collections by creating collages, animation, movies with soundtrack by press the + button. There is also an 'Assistant view' feature, which provides smart suggestion about when you can make a collection.

With Google Photos, users have the choice to share photos and videos to social networking accounts like Twitter, Whats App to name a few. Lastly, there is feature where users can save and share their photos easier and faster. You can create a specific link to a photo or group of photos that you want to share with friends and families. There is also a multi-selection gesture in photos, where you can press and hold a photo and then drag your finger down the list to select multiple files.

Google Photo app is now available for download for Android, iOS and web.