AdminGoogle Photos AI tricks like Magic Eraser just rolled out to all Google One subscribers, but now Google says it plans to take it to the next frontier: your videos.
In the latest issue of the company Made by Google (opens in a new tab) podcast, senior product manager Zachary Senzer talks about how using AI to automatically edit videos, like existing tools like Photo Unblur and Magic Eraser, is the next step for Google Photos. And that despite the challenges, there are “lots of exciting things on the way” for those who take both moving pictures and stills.
While Google isn’t ready to reveal any details yet, Senzer said that while the recent focus has been on “photographs, I’m personally looking forward to doing more with videos.” He added that through Google Photos and YouTube, Google has noticed that “people are capturing and creating a lot more videos than ever before” and that “there is so much potential in space to really revolutionize what people can do with their videos.”
Exactly how Google plans to do this isn’t clear yet, but Google has just rolled out the HDR effect feature (below) for videos – and the likes of Photo Unblur and Magic Eraser give us a good guide. The latter would certainly be an amazing video feature, while automatic cropping and convincing video bokeh (in a manner similar to portrait modes) can both drastically reduce editing time and improve overall gloss.
The reason we haven’t seen these features is because of the massive computing power required to apply local changes to videos versus photos. As podcast host Rachid Finge notes, “most videos are 30 images per second, so it must be at least 30 times harder.” Zachary Senzer agrees that it’s “definitely more difficult,” but says there’s a lot of “exciting” video-related features along the way.
Like Google’s photo-related AI features, they would likely initially be limited to Pixel phones with the Google Tensor chip. Senzer says that for the Google Pixel 6 and Google Pixel 7, “we worked very closely with our AI researchers at Google to create machine learning models that work well on Tensor.”
Given the much greater demands of video editing, this will likely be the same for future editing tricks – but the recent rollout of Magic Eraser and Photo Unblur to all Google One devices shows that automated video editing in Google Photos may eventually be available on devices other than Google Photos. than – Pixel phones too.
Analysis: Video editing will soon become easier
While some of the best video editing apps today, such as Adobe Premiere Rush, Lumafusion, and GoPro Quik, offer some automatic video editing features, they don’t come close to the scale of Google Photos – or offer the same one-tap usability as photo tricks like Magic eraser.
Google has been keen to talk about its role as a democratizer of simple editing, both photos and videos, on its Made by Google podcast, with Zachary Senzer stating that he wants to make sure that any “ordinary person can come in and get these really amazing photos and videos.” with one touch without the required knowledge.
But while it certainly sounds like Google will introduce video editing tricks to Google Photos and Pixel phones in the near future, it’s not the only company excited about the potential of compute video.
Last year, Adobe vice president and associate Marc Levoy – who previously pioneered Google’s computational photography modes for Pixel phones – said that computational video would be the next big imaging feature, adding that “for every magical new photography feature that companies bring to smartphones , it’s the analogous feature you’d imagine for video.”
Levoy has also strongly hinted that Adobe will also enter the mobile video recording space. “Adobe has built the most powerful video editing applications in the industry (primarily Premiere and After Effects), but so far has been reluctant to enter the video recording space,” he said. “As mobile cameras get better and better, this becomes a natural next step,” added Levoy.
Whether it’s Google I/O 2023 in May or Adobe Max 2023 later in the year, expect video to be the next big topic in AI-powered editing tools.
