Google is making it a lot easier for you to share pictures on its Google Photos app. Google first introduced Google Photos about two years ago, and they now have over 500 million active users, backing up more than 1.2 billion photos and videos each day. The company wants you to share these pictures with your loved ones by introducing three new ways to share – suggested sharing, Shared Libraries, and via physical photos using photo books.
Suggested sharing uses machine learning technology to remind you to share your pictures with relevant people. When your pictures are backed up to Google Photos, the company will select pictures and recommend you to share it with the people inside. Just tap send, and your friends and family will see the photos. Google will also remind them to add their pictures too.
But what about those moments where you just want to share everything with a special someone, like your spouse, partner or best friend? With Shared Libraries on Google Photos, you can “effortlessly and automatically send and receive photos with one other person”.
For example if you would like to share all your kids’ photos with your spouse, just give them access to pictures with the child in it. You can customise this feature to only allow them to see limited photos, or grant them access from a certain date forward, so use this picture to ensure you don’t accidentally share past pictures of your ex with your current partner.
Finally, Google is also making it easier for you to print out photos with photo books. Just pick the photos you would like to print out, and Google Photos will automatically organise them by the people, places or things that matters; Google Photos will also find the best shots for you, removing duplicates and poor quality images. Once done, you can send it to print for US$9.99 for a 20-page softcover book, and US$19.99 for a hardcover book. Sadly though, this service will only be available in the U.S. at launch. Google says that they will bring photo books to more countries soon, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for it.
Google will roll out these new features to Google Photos on Android, iOS and web in the coming weeks. Check out Google now for more information.
