When you get your hands on a Google Pixel 8 or Pixel 8 Pro, it’ll be tempting to try and transform the photos you take using the cool new AI tools it includes.
These features are absurd, because it would suddenly be possible to create your “perfect” photo after the fact, with almost no effort other than tapping on the screen. It’s an exciting new world, but it needs to be approached and enjoyed very carefully.
An amazing AI photo toolkit
You may already know about Google’s Magic Eraser tool, which uses AI to quickly and easily remove unwanted distractions from your photos. Suddenly your beach shots are freed of people, ugly objects can be removed, and photo bombers are blasted into oblivion – all with a few taps. This is surprisingly powerful and, provided the scene is not too complex, very effective. It’s also now available in Google Photos on Pixel phones and many other smartphones.
But it’s about to be joined by two other tools as the Pixel 8 series will introduce Magic Editor and Best Shot, which go way beyond the innocent simplicity of Magic Eraser. According to Google, the Magic Editor uses generative AI to “re-imagine your photos,” where you can re-frame the scene, resize subjects, reposition lighting, weather, etc. You can change the position of the image and even add something that was not previously present in the image. This can be used to create a completely different photo from the one you took.
Magic Editor was unveiled during Google I/O 2023 and will debut pixel 8 phone, where it is joined by another new feature called Best Tech. It takes a series of photos, something like burst mode, but with a bias towards faces, and later allows you to create a “best shot” using the results. The idea is probably that not everyone in the same photo will be smiling or looking at the camera at the same time, but Best Tech will let you use all the different images taken to change everyone’s face and Will artificially create his ideal scene that never existed. It’s unbelievable but also scary.
don’t chase perfection
That’s a really impressive roster of AI tools, and if Magic Eraser is anything to go by, Magic Editor and Best Tech have the potential to do a really good job in the right conditions. However, before you get too excited, think about the cumulative effect these tools have on your pictures. You can remove distractions, artificially add more of what you wanted to the shot, make sure everyone is smiling and looking at the camera, and make sure the light is coming from the ideal spot.
what you would have done is Make a photo instead of Take A photo, and this is why I’m going to advise caution, because it would be very easy to get carried away. Subtly altering a photo to improve a scene is very different from creating a new scene that didn’t actually exist, and by doing so, you risk destroying the imperfection. This may sound strange, but it is a bad thing. Today we are ready to see and appreciate the carefully crafted, incredibly perfect visuals created by social networks and consider them something worth striving for. But this should not always happen.
When I look at photos of friends and family, some of my favorite and most precious photos are the ones that aren’t perfect. An awkward expression here, a quizzical glance there, or an inappropriate sneeze as the shutter opens and closes, are photos that get shared and liked. Those places where we’re all doing what we’re supposed to do, they pass by without much emotion or engagement. This lovely National Geographic article by Heather Greenwood Davis explains far better than I can why adopting the “worst” photos matters.
Granted, imperfection works elsewhere too. People, whether you know who they are or not, can sometimes add something to a photo. They can give it depth, movement and life. Without them, your photo can become a colder, less emotional, rather flat scene. Real world lighting can be used to great creative effect and will always look better than artificial lighting added later by AI, and the trained eye will always tell if the photo has been altered as well.
Am I saying don’t use them at all?
Digitally altering our photos has been possible for decades, but the best uses are the most subtle, and it’s important to learn to use them carefully and with restraint. The photos you consider “bad” today may turn out to be the photos you love most in the future, and altering them to make them perfect by today’s Instagram-driven standards can take away something special from you. Is. For evidence of how attitudes change regarding perfection over time, you only have to look at people’s revived appreciation for music on vinyl, on CD or digital file.
Am I saying don’t use Magic Editor, Best Tech or even Magic Eraser Sometimes, Absolutely not. But I am saying use them wisely and carefully. Proceed slowly with changes, don’t go crazy. Don’t replace photos, experiment and make duplicates instead. Don’t delete the original, keep it and revisit it later, as your opinion of it may change. We’re spoiled for choice by having the opportunity to take dozens, if not hundreds, of photos and not have to worry about storage or changing film, so use this and Google’s AI tools to your advantage.
Google’s new AI tools go far beyond adding filters or increasing saturation to a photo, they have the power to create an almost entirely new photo that you and your camera didn’t actually take. This is an incredible feat, especially because it’s possible on the phone in your pocket, not on a $10,000 desktop computer run by a professional in a studio. But caution is needed before diving.
In art, Japanese philosophy rumors teaches us to embrace and appreciate the beauty found in imperfection, and it’s worth remembering this before you go crazy over Google’s new photo AI.
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