Google recently released an update to its Photos app that allows iPhone and iPad owners to use powerful light and color correction tools. This ability is exclusive to iOS and iPadOS and not yet available to Android users. Whether a future update may bring the same features to Android phones is currently unknown.
Google Photos is the name of both an app and a cloud-based photo and video storage service. These components work together almost seamlessly, allowing anyone with a Google account to sync media to the cloud. Google Photos offers free, unlimited storage of photos and video in high-quality. For maximum quality, a paid subscription is required. Google Photos is quite a rich and full-featured service offering many advanced capabilities, some powered by artificial intelligence. For anyone unfamiliar with the service or app, it is definitely worth learning more.
With version 5.8, Google introduced new tools to its video editor. The update, available now in the App Store, makes Google Photos video editing competitive with Apple Photos, which already featured light and color correction tools. In some ways, the tools of each are similar, but Google offers better color controls and the light adjustments are distinct enough to be useful. Filter effects are also available, but the real power lies behind the icon that looks like sliders. Using the video scrubber and play button, adjustments can be previewed before being applied to the video. Unlike Apple Photos, the edits cannot be undone later, but since they are saved as a new copy, the original is not overwritten.
Available Photos Options & What They Do
After selecting a video, there will be an edit icon at the bottom. In edit mode, the bottom row of tabs, from left to right, become Playback controls, Filter options, Edit tools and Cropping controls. Playback is mostly obvious, but also allows exporting of a single frame from a video. This has become quite useful when recording in 4K resolution. Filters are easy to understand and the user can just pick from the available options. Cropping is also simple and intuitive, and rotation of a video is also possible from this section. The real power and unique Google features are within the editing tools, as it is these that can really help to make iPhone video even better.
Light controls include some familiar terms, such as Contrast and Exposure, which are typical of most every photo editing app. Whites and Blacks allow control of the intensity of these extremes. Most interesting are Highlights and Shadows, an easier to understand light control than what's found in Apple Photos. These two controls allow the user to adjust the dark and light portions of a video with a greater finesse. Color controls are different from Apple Photos also, including a slider for Skin Tone, though it really only affects any reddish tones in a video. Similarly, Deep Blue affects only blues in the video. Warmth, Tint and Saturation are fairly common, and any changes can be previewed by going to the Playback tab and when finished editing, a copy can be saved to cloud storage. Apple Photos does have video correction and live previews, but Google Photos offers a different set of tools that many will find beneficial when making iPhone videos.
Source: App Store