Google Photos' new video editor brings a redesigned interface and new features, but key tools have been removed.
Paul Monckton covers photography, imaging and generative AI Google Photos launched a new video editor with a streamlined Material 3 interface, new music integration, and improved crop/rotate tools. While offering a more intuitive experience, it notably removed key features like perspective correction, auto-trim, and markup, which may frustrate some users.
Google has indicated plans to restore these missing functionalities in future updates.Google Photos' new video editor brings a redesigned interface and new features, but key tools have been removed.Google Photos has rolled out a new video editor offering a streamlined interface and new tools for easier mobile video editing. Some features, including perspective correction and auto-trim, have been removed, potentially impacting some users.Google Photos has just launched a redesigned video editor that adds useful features and an all-new look. While the update streamlines the interface and adopts Google’s latest design language, some key tools have been relocated or removed entirely. Here’s a rundown of the changes, detailing everything new and what features Google has unexpectedly removed.You’ll immediately notice the updated video editor from its new interface based on Google’s latest Material 3 Expressive design philosophy. The change follows a similar recent update to the Photos Editor and makes the interface more intuitive to use and makes functions easier to find.Google Photos has rolled out a new video editor streamlining the previous version and adding new features.The new editor features a carousel of graphical icons at the bottom of the screen, replacing the previous text-only buttons. This design maximizes screen space and provides clearer visual clues as to their function. These icons are automatically highlighted as you use them, so you can see which tools you have used in your current edit.PAUL MONCKTONThe new interface features a much-improved crop and rotate tool, incorporating a new “mirror” function that lets you instantly flip videos left-to-right. Google Photos now lets you add background music to your videos from a built-in audio library or your own audio files.A brand-new music feature allows you to quickly add background music to any video. Choose either from a built-in music library, categorized by mood, or import your own audio files. A waveform display helps you precisely align the music with your video, and a dedicated volume control lets you balance the music's level with your video’s original audio. The music tool doesn’t explicitly state how the included music is licensed, but attempting to upload an audio file from your local device displays a warning not to share copyrighted material without consent. The built-in library carries no such warning, implying that the included music can be used freely.A new “Export frame” button has been added to the video editor, prominently displayed above the timeline. This lets you save the current video frame as a JPEG image. Note that the new image will be saved under the same date as the original video, not the date when you exported it.The “video” tool has been removed, and its features —Stabilize, Enhance, and Speed —are now accessible from dedicated icons in the carousel below. This simplifies the interface by removing a confusingly-named category where every tool is essentially a video tool anyway.This is a controversial one: Notably absent from the new video editor is the perspective correction tool, which allowed users to adjust the four corners of the video frame independently. This feature was particularly useful for correcting architectural imagery or squaring up misaligned footage. Note that the perspective correction tool has also been recently removed from the photo editor, promptingwho must now resort to external software to complete the task. Google claims its team is “working to restore” this feature in the photo editor, which makes it all the more surprising that it has subsequently been removed from the video editor.The “Auto trim” feature has been removed. This feature would attempt to automatically trim the start and end of your video clip, retaining only the most interesting section.. This is most likely the reason for the removal of the original Auto-trim function. However, these video presets still haven’t rolled out to everyone, leaving some users without any auto-trimming capability for now.feature that automatically identifies the “best parts” of your videos, seeking out joyful, nostalgic or visually rich moments using server-based AI. The key difference with this feature is that key moments are identified automatically during playback rather than during the video editing process. The Markup tool has been removed from the Google Photos video editor, forcing users to look elsewhere for this functionality.The Markup feature, which allowed users to add text, pen and highlighter marks to their videos, appears to have been removed entirely. While useful for quickly annotating a video, Google Photos’ markup features always felt somewhat crude and simplistic compared to those offered by social media apps like Instagram. However, some users will be annoyed at the loss of these functions. Overall, Google Photos’ new video editor is a significant improvement, offering a streamlined interface and useful new features. While the removal of key tools will frustrate some users, Google appears to be working to restore them or replace them with updated versions. I look forward to seeing these important improvements in a future update.
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