Thanks to the magic of machine learning
Google Photos is indispensable, magical, and sometimes even a little depressing when it reminds you of how things used to be. Among other things, Google Photos has highlighted “Memories” that bring together photos of a type, time, or date, sometimes with fun effects. One of those is Cinematic photos, which create a slowly dramatic zoom or panning 3D effect from a 2D photo. Soon, missing background details in those Cinematic photos will be filled in for an even more magical effect, courtesy of machine learning.
Cinematic photo filters first rolled out back at the end of 2020, and if you haven’t seen it in action before, it’s actually pretty cool.
You can’t actively seek the effect out to apply it to an image intentionally, but Google Photos can automatically choose a good one (seemingly always a portrait) and, on its end, turn that 2D image into a 3D video with a slowly zooming effect applied to the subject. However, in that 2D to 3D extrapolation, the single flat image doesn’t precisely describe all the texture details that would be necessary for content in the background or behind foreground objects in the new 3D scene. Sometimes you’d see bits in the background end up stretched or blurry to plug the gap, and that’s why Google is rolling out a change that allows Google Photos to fill in details that weren’t captured all on its own, courtesy of machine learning — probably with something like what the new Pixel Magic Eraser feature does.
In the example Google provided, that means the 3D effect can be way more dramatic, providing more flexibility for the virtual camera to move through the scene.
Google’s also re-announcing that new People & Pets widget, which is rolling out now this week for Android. It lets you enjoy a steady updated stream of photos for specific people or animals in your life. So if, like me, you’re constantly taking photos of your cat for no particular reason, you can further enjoy having them on your home screen for no particular reason. (This whole concept probably works better for folks with kids or more interesting pets.)
The announcement for the feature was nestled today in a longer post on the Google blog, which also highlights other existing features, like the ability to fine-tune Memories to exclude specific times, people, or Memories types — including those Cinematic photos we just mentioned. So nothing is stopping you from just blocking every reminder of how things were back in the beforetimes.
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