Google leak reveals new video features for Google Photos

Google is testing a selection of powerful automated tools that should make it much easier to edit videos with just a few taps.

According to a new report from Android AuthorityGoogle is adding a new “Presets” feature that adds four new effects that can be automatically applied to any of your recorded videos. The features were discovered by prolific app researcher Assemble Debug, who enabled the unreleased features hidden in the code of the latest Google Photos app for Android (version 6.97). This means the features aren’t yet available to users, but they’ll likely appear soon in a future update.

The four presets include:

• Basic Cut – to automatically trim the most interesting section of a longer video (and also adjust colors)
• Slow Motion – To add a slow motion effect to a section of your video
• Zoom: To add a smooth digital zoom effect
• Tracking: To track a moving object, usually a person, in an existing video

You can see a brief demonstration of the features in the following video:

Google Photos: New video editing features

As shown in the video, the new controls are set to appear in a new “Presets” section that will appear whenever you tap “Edit” to edit a video. You should find it between “Video” and “Trim” in the carousel at the bottom of the screen. When you receive the feature, a message should appear that says “New! Automatically trim key moments and add effects with just one tap.” Tapping on Presets will bring up the following options mentioned above:

Basic cut

After tapping Basic Trim, the app displays a progress bar with the message “Trimming to key moment,” followed by “Enhancing colors” along with a progress bar. It takes about five seconds to process the seven-second video clip used in the demo, after which you can manually adjust the start and end points to fine-tune the results. I don’t know why Google has chosen to add a color enhancement process here. I imagine there will be many situations where you’ll simply want to trim a section of the video without altering its appearance.

Slow motion

The slow motion feature allows you to select a section within your clip that will play in slow motion. You have to choose the slow motion portion manually and there doesn’t seem to be any setting that allows you to control the speed of the slow motion effect.

Zoom

Similarly, the “zoom” effect lets you mark a section of your video, but this time, the view will smoothly zoom in by about 2x and then zoom out again at the end of the marked section. Again, it doesn’t appear that the speed of the zoom effect can be altered; it’s just a quick zoom in and out.

Clue

It’s harder to determine what the Tracking feature does from the video, but according to the report, it will automatically zoom in and follow a moving person within the video clip.

Unfortunately, you can’t combine all of these presets into a single video – the presets feature is currently limited to Basic Cut plus just one of the three remaining options. However, any or all of these restrictions may change before the feature is available to users.

Video editing can be a little overwhelming for novice users, so it’s great to see Google including automated options like these. However, it remains to be seen how useful they’ll be in practice. For example, many video clips contain more than one “key moment.” It’s unclear how these new presets will cope with these situations. Users who need more advanced editing will need to switch to more capable apps, such as Cap Cut or Adobe Premiere Rush.

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