Google has introduced a new feature called Cinematic Photos on its Google Photos app. This new feature will add cinematic effects even to 2D images in your gallery. This means that the feature can add a cinematic panning effect to the photo even if it doesn’t include depth information from the camera. In case you’re wondering how to use Google Photos Cinematic photos feature, you don’t have to do much except turn it on in settings.
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The Mountain View giant has shared a GIF on its official blog showing a cinematic photo created by the feature. The image shows a portrait of a girl with an immaculate panning and background separation, which gives the impression that the picture was taken using a camera and not smartphone. Here’s a detailed guide on how to turn on the Cinematic photos feature and what it does.
What is Google Cinematic photos?
As mentioned, the new Cinematic photos, as the name suggests, adds a cinematic panning effect to existing images. The feature works even for 2D images and images that don’t have depth information from the camera. According to the post on the official Google blog by Jamie Aspinall, Product Manager of Google Photos, the feature uses Machine Learning to achieve the effect.
According to the blog, Google Photos uses “machine learning to predict an image’s depth and produce a 3D representation of the scene—even if the original image doesn’t include depth information from the camera. Then we animate a virtual camera for a smooth panning effect—just like out of the movies.”
The Google Photos app will automatically generate cinematic photos and show them in the recent highlights at the top of the photo grid.
How to enable Cinematic photos in Google Photos app
In order to use the cinematic photos feature, ensure that your Google Photos app is updated to the latest version. The Cinematic photos should be turned on by default. In case you don’t see the cinematic photos on top of your grid, turn it on from the settings using the below steps.
- Open Google Photos app and tap on the profile icon in the top left corner
- Tap on ‘Photos settings’
- Click on ‘Memories’
- Click on ‘Advanced’
- Toggle on ‘Cinematic photos’
- Done!
You should now be able to see cinematic photo option in ‘Recent highlights’ on top of the app. Have you received the feature yet? Let us know in the comments.