Microsoft has announced a new update for the Windows Photos app on for members of the Windows Insider Progam in the Canary and Dev channels They include adding new editing tools as well as general improvements. The company is bringing features that include background blur, OneDrive improvements, and more.
The Redmond giant announced the new update in a blog post that details the new features. The Photos app can now add background blur to photos. The feature automatically identifies the subject and the surrounding background to apply a blur with a click of a button. It also lets users control the blur intensity as well as gives users an option to select the various areas to blur if they are not happy with the default selection.
Microsoft is also bringing content search for photos that are backed up on OneDrive. With the latest update, users can search for content in a picture like cars, beaches, birthdays and more. In order to use the feature, users will have to be signed into OneDrive and will have to navigate to the OneDrive personal section. Once there, they can use the search bar on the top to search for content.
Known issue: If you are brand new to OneDrive or have not previously used photo search on OneDrive, search may not work right away as OneDrive processes the photos. If you’re not seeing any search results, check back in a few hours and try again.
Moving on to the other additions which include bringing Motion Photo support for photos captured using Samsung and Google smartphones. Microsoft is also adding location search which will allow users to search for photos taken at a specific location. This feature is available for all the photos in the collection including those saved on OneDrive and Apple iCloud.
Lastly, the latest update brings a bunch of fixes and improvements to the app:
- Based on community feedback, we updated our up-sampling logic so that images no longer appear pixelated when zooming in by a large factor.
- Touch support for slideshow is now available. Swipe left and right to easily navigate to the next photo in your slideshow.
- Edit and Create Video options are now easily accessible at the top of the gallery view.
- The previous issue where an app restart was required for iCloud photos to start showing is fixed. Once you have enabled photo syncing in your iCloud for Windows app, you will see photos stored on iCloud start showing up.
You will need to have Photos app version 2023.11090.13001.0 or higher in order to take advantage of the new features, in addition to being a member of the Dev or Canary Windows Insiders Program
The Photos app is not the only app that has been updated recently to add new features. Last week, Microsoft announced an update for Paint that brought the ability to remove background from images with ease.
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