Here’s your first look at Google Photos’ new face editor

Google Photos is one of the best photo editing apps out there, but one thing it’s never had is a way to retouch specific parts of your face. While the Camera has had the face retouching feature for years, the Photos app has never supported targeted editing. That’s finally changing, and we can now show you how.

Back in October, we discovered early code strings hinting at a full-fledged face retouching suite inside Google Photos. We’ve now managed to enable the feature for the first time in version 7.56.0.839465534 of the app. Here’s your exclusive first look at how “Touch Up” will work in Google Photos when it goes live.

Touch Up sits inside the Actions tab in the Google Photos editor. Tapping it for the first time prompts you to download the required machine learning models (16MB) that power the effects. Once installed, you’re taken into a dedicated Touch Up interface with the following face retouching options:

• Smooth
• Under Eyes
• Irises
• Teeth
• Eyebrows
• Lips

Each effect opens with its own slider, allowing you to fine-tune the intensity of the effect. Just pick the areas you want to tweak, drag the slider, and save when you’re done. Here’s a video showing Touch Up works.

One of the best parts about the tool in Google Photos is that it can handle individual face edits in group photos. Instead of applying effects to everyone simultaneously, Google Photos automatically detects each face and lets you retouch it separately. The feature currently supports up to six faces in a single shot.

If there are more than six faces in your photo, you’ll see a prompt letting you know the feature only supports six faces. You can’t remove or modify which faces are detected, but the per-person control already puts this tool well ahead of most built-in photo editors.

It’s unclear when Google will roll out the feature, but given its current working status, we believe the rollout isn’t far off.