Photo: sdx15 (Shutterstock)
Android users can finally access the updated Google Photos video editor and its 30+ new editing tools. The new features were announced in February and launched on iOS first, and they’re rolling out to Android users starting today.
Unlike some of More recent Google Photos feature updatesthe new video editor is available for free – no Google One subscription required. It’s also available for Pixel and non-Pixel Android devices. It will be introduced via a server-side update and should be available soon for most users. However, they may take longer to appear on some devices.
To get started with these new tools, open a video in Google Photos, and then tap “To edit” Icon at the bottom of the screen to load the in-app editor.
The new interface divides the available editing tools into four categories, which can be selected in the lower menu:
Screenshot: Brendan Hesse
G / O Media can receive a commission
- Video: Trim the length of your video, mute audio, apply stabilization, and export individual frames as image files.
- Harvest: Contains tools for cropping, rotating and adjusting horizontally.
- To adjust: Adjust brightness, contrast, white point, warmth, hue, skin tone, vignette and more.
- Filter: Apply Google Photo’s image filters to your video footage.
- More: Includes a markup tool that you can use to draw or overwrite your clips.
You can tinker as much as you want with the new settings. Edited clips are saved as a new file, and your changes do not affect the original raw footage.
The update makes Google Photos much better for editing videos, but it still lacks some general features on Android and iOS that prevent the app from being a comprehensive post-production tool – like combining multiple shots into a single video, adding transitions , or apply your own audio to clips while editing. However, the new controls are a massive upgrade over the previous version of Google Photos’ video editing tools that only allowed you to crop, rotate, and stabilize your footage.