Fantastic app "Google Photos"

                    Google Photos – A lot to know about

Google Photos is one of those apps which we use quite frequently but few of us actually know how to use it to its full potential. Google has loaded this app with tons of features which all of us don’t know about. Photos app was launched during the 2015 I/O and it comes with the new os android update. So basically all the smartphones running on the updated OS will have this app by default.

 Since its launch Google Photos has undergone many changes. Frankly speaking I did not find it user friendly when it first came to my phone and replaced Gallery app. I was accustomed to the easy going folder view of Gallery. So I immediately went to the play store and downloaded gallery again. But since then Photos has evolved a lot and has become an essential part of my phone.

It is free on playstore and gives you bunch of features for photo management. It offers unlimited photo storage (only 16Gb free then chargeable)  with 16MP high resolution images and 1080p videos. Photos is also available on IOS also. Even you can download it on your desktop which gives seamless access to all your photos and videos in your handsets.

Let’s get through the some of the coolest features of photos app.

1.     Easy upload of photos and videos from Desktop.

Just visit photos.google.com with your google login and that’s it. You need to drag and drop you photos on the page. It’s as simple as it sounds. I tried doing it from a windows xp pc just to see if its compatibility is not limited to any windows os and I did not find any problem. It is really simple to use.

2.     Duplicates bye-bye

Google Photos is not just a photo viewer. It also understands the photo content. So let’s say you have two duplicate photos in your phone using up extra memory. Photos will merge those duplicate photos thereby cleaning up a lot of space on your phone.

3.     Adding labels

Now you can add labels to the photos you click. Photos allows to add description and labels to the photos. So next time you want find any photo just click on the search icon on the photos app home page and you can get easy access and find your favorite clicks instantly.

To add label to your photos open the photos>go to info and you can add the description of the photo. This feature is only available with the photos uploaded on the drive. So in order to use this feature you must upload the image on google drive first.  Before uploading you can choose the quality of the images you want to upload. Just go to Menu>Settings>Backup &  Sync>upload Size.

4.     Selecting Photos made simple

Google has given some really simple ways of selecting multiple photos. You just to press long on any one photo so that it gets selected. Then you can glide your finger through all the photos you want to select and it gets selected. Pretty Simple!

From your desktop you can do it in the same old way of pressing the shift key and selecting

5.     Pinching gestures.

You just need to use swipe and pinching operations to change the view. If you pinch outwards the view will zoom in and you will get larger image views. If you pinch inwards the images will get smaller and you will have small thumbnails with more and more images as you continuing pinching inwards. In the end you will have month wise view of images.

6.     Chromecast  Support.

Yep it’s true. You don’t need to prep up a projector or do anything at all to show images from your phone to a big screen. You just need a chromecast. You can select which photos you want to show on TV and even do the same with gif and videos.

7.     Slow – Fast scrolling.

You can scroll down the images in the traditional way by using your fingers and sliding them on the screen. But what about someone who is a photo lover and has a device full of photos. For that you can use the fast scrolling method. You just need to click on the fast scroll available on the right side of the screen and drag it up or down to move through the images quickly.

8.     Image Editing.
      Photos app allows you to do the basic editing of the images. It does not comes with all the features available in those heavy built photo editing apps still for day to day use basic editing functions are available. You can add shades to your images, crop them, enhance the colour quality etc.

        

9.     Full of swiping.

Photos gives you many shortcuts with swiping on the screen. If you are viewing an image in full screen and you swipe downwards you will go the back to the image list. Swipe right you will go the stories page where you can view the albums creates by you. If there are no albums the assistant is there to help you out to create one.

10.   Animations

You can club your photos in an animated view using the Photos app. You just need to select the no of photos you want to use for the animation and click on the + sign. You will get a bunch of options such as album, movie, story or animation. You can share these animations also.

11. Easy Sharing.

You can share your photos in the old traditional way by email, whatsapp, Bluetooth or by other means. But Photos offers a great new method to share your photos as albums. You just need to select the photos you want to share and click on the share button. You will get an option to create a link. This link is then copied to your system clipboard. You can share this link with your friends and relatives. On opening the links they will find a gallery containing only the photos you selected. They can even download these photos quite easily.

If the person is signed into a Google account and is having Photos app, he can directly add the photos to his gallery. This has taken the whole concept of photo sharing to a new level.

There is an important feature without which the concept of photo sharing is incomplete i.e. Revoking the rights to view the photos. You can get into situations in which you share a photo you did not want to and now you want to revoke the access to that photo. Google has made provisions for that also. Just go to Menu>shared links and you can find the images you shared. Now you can remove the images you don’t want others to look at. Of course those who have viewed the photo can still take a dig at you but still saves from a bigger embarrassment.

12. Space Saving.

You can remove the backed up images from your phones. After uploading the photos you don’t need to allocate those extra mb’s or in many cases those extra gb’s. You can remove these photos. You need to get to Menu> settings> free up device storage. Photos will come with the ways in which you can save some extra space.

Well that’s it from my side. Now you can try these features and come up with a whole a new set of innovative ideas to make the best of these new features.

You can go to the below link to know further about the photo sharing feature of Photos app

https://googleblog.blogspot.in/2015/12/shared-memories-made-easy-with-google.html