Google is trying to make a better case for people to use its Google+ social network by including new features for photography buffs, and anyone else who likes to collect pictures. Some of the new features include automatic editing tools that can easily make your photos look better.
According to Google executive Vic Gundotra this week, photography today is still too difficult, and it is hard for the layman to produce really good photos. Some of the new software that Google is offering will allow users to make advanced photo edits. But Google also is adding simple tools that make it easy to enhance an image. These tools are designed for the average user who just wants to quickly improve how a photo of their loved ones looks.
At a recent tech conference in San Francisco, Gundotra revealed several new photo editing tools for Google+, including tools to improve lighting and focus. He also showed new tools that can assemble several photos into one action shot, or erase objects or even people from a photo background. This feature uses Google algorithms to determine which things are most important in each shot.
Google, which has gotten headlines lately for some of its party boat barges, has named some of these tools ‘auto awesome.’ He also showed a new photo feature that will choose the best images from an event and put them into a movie. It will feature background music from a large library of melodies that Google has for free use.
Other new Google+ photo features will expand on services that Google offered in the past. One of these is the ability to look for a photo that is in Google+, by typing or speaking a search command, such as ‘Show me pictures of Scotland from 2012.’ Gundotra noted that Google has added many more keywords that this service will know, and it will let users search the photos of their friends as well.
Google also has come out with a new ad format in recent weeks, which goes to show you that this company is always, always on the move!