Image credit — Google
At the Made by Google event last week, the company announced that the previously unveiled Zoom Enhance feature will finally be coming to the Pixel 8 Pro and then to the Pixel 9 Pro at launch. This feature promises to change the way you edit your photos. To give more information, Peyman Milanfar – a distinguished scientist at Google who leads the computational imaging team – used the X to illustrate what we can expect.
Google claims it’s the first image-to-image diffusion model that can run entirely on your device. This means you can crop or reframe your image after you’ve taken it, then enhance it to get the look you want. And the best part is that it works with photos from any device, not just Pixels.
Have you ever taken a photo and wished you had zoomed in further or framed it better? In that case, we simply crop it.
Now there’s a better way: Zoom Enhance—a new feature my team just brought to Pixel. Available in Google Photos under Tools, it enhances both zoomed and unzoomed images.
1/n pic.twitter.com/vKkKdXTwX2
— Peyman Milanfar (@docmilanfar) 15 August 2024
- Zoom in further: If you’ve already zoomed in this far but still want to get closer, you can use Zoom Enhance to zoom in even further and enhance the image.
- See details of distant objects: When something is too far away to see clearly, it can help you highlight the details.
- Get closer to famous landmarks: If you’ve ever been in a crowded museum or tourist attraction, you know how difficult it is to get a good photo without a lot of people getting in the way. Zoom Enhance lets you take a photo from a distance and zoom in on the subject later.
- Read signs from a distance: If you’re too far away to read a sign, Zoom Enhance can help you make out the text.
- Adjust the frame of your shots: Instead of just cropping them, you can now reframe your shot later without any loss of quality.
- Isolate and highlight small subjects: If the subject of your photo is small and surrounded by a lot of empty space, Zoom Enhance can help you isolate and highlight the area that matters to you.
- Breathe new life into old photos: Isolate and enhance parts of old, poor quality photos.
- Enhance low-resolution images: If you have photos from social media or the internet that are low quality or resolution, you can enhance them with or without cropping, as long as they are small enough (around 1MP).
- Upscale images from text-to-image generators: If you use text-to-image generators, you can use Zoom Enhance to upscale the images to a higher resolution.
Zoom Enhance is available in Google Photos under the Tools section. To use it, all you need to do is open a photo, tap Tools, then select Zoom Enhance. You can then crop or reframe your shot and adjust the level of enhancement. When you’re happy with the results, tap Save. This really is a welcome addition to Google Photos and a powerful tool to help you get the most out of your photo memories.
