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Google Brings New Video AI Features to Google Photos and YouTube Shorts

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Google today announced that it is bringing new AI video editing tools to both Google Photos and YouTube Shorts.

Google-Logo-Feature-Slack.jpg

Google Photos is gaining a photo-to-video feature that's powered by Veo 2. The photo app will be able to generate short videos from the photos that are saved in the Google Photos gallery, adding subtle animations, facial expressions, and more.

Google Photos users can select a picture from their photo gallery and choose the "Subtle movements" or "I'm feeling lucky" options to bring images to life with movement. The feature is rolling out today in the Google Photos apps for iOS and Android.

In the next few weeks, Google Photos will get a "Remix" feature that will allow users to change the style of a photo using AI. Available options will include anime, comic, sketch, and 3D animation. The Photo to video and Remix tools can both be found in the new Create tab in Google Photos, and all AI-generated content will be watermarked with a SynthID digital watermark.

As for YouTube Shorts, Google is allowing creators to use the Photo to video feature to turn pictures from the camera roll into videos that work on the Shorts platform. As with the option in Google Photos, Photo to video can add movement to landscape photos, animate everyday images, and add life to group photos.

Creators are also able to use new effects that can transform doodles into images and turn selfies into unique videos.

Photo to video for YouTube Shorts is rolling out today and over the next week, and it's a free feature that will be available in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The new effects are rolling out in the coming weeks and can be found by tapping the Effects icon in the Shorts camera.

Article Link: Google Brings New Video AI Features to Google Photos and YouTube Shorts
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/07/23/google-ai-features-photos-youtube/
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bobbyjack said:
I watched a video where a man showed his grandmother a video of her husband, deceased 20 years, created from a photo. Obviously, she ended up sobbing. It didn't strike me as heartwarming....
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Reminiscent of mediums who speak with demons disguised as the dead (or fake the entire thing with cold reading) for “closure”… AI is taking their jobs too!
 
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Can't wait for the all the new modes like:
🤡 Joker Mode - turn everyone into grinning ghouls
😭🩸 Weeping (blood) Mode - I'm so used to weeping blood in Slack I forgot it's not a Unicode emoji (yet)
😐 Nonplussed Mode - when expressions are just "too much" or "extra" as the kids say

Sigh.
 
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bobbyjack said:
I watched a video where a man showed his grandmother a video of her husband, deceased 20 years, created from a photo. Obviously, she ended up sobbing. It didn't strike me as heartwarming....
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Yeah. If someone created some creepy, uncanny valley AI-generated video of a loved one who was gone, I would find that very upsetting and tell them to stop showing it to my family.

One thing I have been doing is making sure I occasionally take Spatial 3D videos of people now, even though I don't an Apple Vision headset or any other way to watch them. I assume not too long in the future there will be accessible ways to view them and I'll be glad I took them. I haven't actually watched one in 3D, but I've read a lot about people being really swept away by the realism. I'll that THAT over some crude and terrifying AI puppetry any damn day.
 
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zahuh said:
This is the first time ever that I'm jealous I don't use Google Photos as my main photo library. Some of these AI videos bring life to people that aren't with us anymore and it's incredibly emotional and amazing!
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Stunning and brave! 🥹🫡🫡
 
zahuh said:
This is the first time ever that I'm jealous I don't use Google Photos as my main photo library. Some of these AI videos bring life to people that aren't with us anymore and it's incredibly emotional and amazing!
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True in some sense, but it’s a lie that it’s creating and that’s not healthy for anyone.
 
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Will try it out but and I think it will definitely improve over time. Not sure how privacy will be respected by using all the users photos.
 
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lowkey said:
One can retreat as a Luddite if one wishes, but the fact is Apple is falling way behind its competitors on the software side.
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I have said this before and I will say this again, I buy a computer or a phone for that matter to run the software I want, not what the manufactures want me to run.
If people don't want Ai on their devices, that don't make them a Luddite.
 
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svish said:
Will try it out but and I think it will definitely improve over time. Not sure how privacy will be respected by using all the users photos.
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Privacy is the problem, we have very little of it these days, it is all about how much data they can grab. They certainly don't do it for nothing
I don't keep photos on my phone, I put them on an external drive and don't upload them to the cloud either. Not thatg I use my phone for photos/videos that often. I prefer my camera
 
lowkey said:
Luddite
/ˈlʌdʌɪt/
noun
1. a person opposed to new technology or ways of working.
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I know what it means and I am not opposed to new technology, just to the companies behind a lot of it and the data grabbing.
Sometimes the older ways of working are better than the new way's and see8i9ng the mistakes and stupid things that Ai comes out with, why should we trust it?

Also, these companies, don't care about creators and grab stuff that is copyright, I heard that Trump thing on the radio this morning, I did not block my ears quick enough saying there is nothing that can be done, in other words, he won't do, nothing.
Thankfully, there are ways to block the bots that zoom around the net looking for more data.
I like the idea of AI, but it will anhd is abused and there arer too many rich people in charge of it, people who are dubius at the best of times and based in the U.S.A.

I don't want AI on my devices, if I want to use AI, I will use it in a browser.
 
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F23 said:
Free Unlimited Google Photos for 10 years was the easiest way to collect all that juicy training data
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I bought a Pixel OG to get unlimited storage without compression. I would send pictures taken with my iPhone and access them from the Google Photos app.

It worked great. Then Google started putting barriers. Always requiring the latest app version in the Pixel to be able to upload. The nail in the coffin was requiring Full Access to your pictures in my iPhone.

I deleted the app and now I pay for iCloud+. To migrate from Google Photos it’s a PITA. You export the pictures but Google keeps the metadata SEPARATE in a .json file. They have a website to migrate to iCloud but it doesn’t work if you have advanced encryption enabled.

There’s a tool on GitHub but it didn’t fix all the photos, maybe 80%.
 
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lowkey said:
Luddite
/ˈlʌdʌɪt/
noun
1. a person opposed to new technology or ways of working.
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Not every technological innovation is good. Not every new technology is rolled out with people's best interests in mind. People don't have to just accept whatever ****ed up thing Silicon Valley shoves down our throats.
 
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