Google Photos is updating with new features to allow users more control over their photos. These features focus mainly on the ability to better share the photos with friends and family, but also includes a way to make sorting through hundreds of photos quickly.
Shared Albums allows users to create unified album that will allow multiple people to contribute pictures for all to see. All one needs to do is share the link to the album with the other participants, after which everyone will be able to add their own photos. Google believes that this is what people are missing when they have multiple people with pictures of the same event.
The Shared Albums feature will also allow people to subscribe to a shared album, mainly to get notifications about when new photos are added. Ideally, this makes it easier for families to share photos of children and notable events with each other. Shared Albums is coming to Google Photos later this year.
Google is also making it easier to sort through pictures stored in Google Photos with the application of labels. These labels can be anything the owner of the pictures wants; Google used the example of the annoying relative who insists on being called “Dutch Thunder”. Of course, these labels are private and are not shared with anyone. Possibly because some easy to remember labels are less than flattering to others.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like there is a quick way to label old pictures; which means that this is likely to be useful for pictures taken after the feature is implemented. Labels for Google Photos is launching for the Android app this week, with web and iOS receiving it at a later date.
Finally, the inevitable Chromecast support for Google Photos is coming to the Android app this week. It does the usual screen mirroring, but also allows the user to control which photos to cast. The feature will also be arriving on the Google Photos iOS app some time this year.
