In the age of the smartphone, digital edits are on a fast pace to improve photos from boosting colours to tweaking light levels.
Google’s smartphone tools powered by artificial intelligence (AI) are adding to the debate about what it means to photography as a whole.
Google’s latest smartphones released last week, the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, go a step further than devices from other companies. They are using AI to help alter people’s face expressions in photographs.
It’s an experience we’ve all had one person in a group shot looks away from the camera or fails to smile or when taking a baby’s picture,they rarely look at the camera. Google’s phones can now look through your past and recent photos to mix and match from past expressions, using machine learning to put a smile from a different photo of them into the picture.The devices also let users erase, move and resize unwanted elements in a photo – from people to buildings – “filling in” the space left behind with what’s called Magic Editor. Using the Pixel 8 Pro one can apply Magic Editor to any pictures in your Google Photos library. However experts worry of this new level of digital edits with some arguing that this could pose a serious threat to people’s trust on online content.
