Google Photos gains improved editing and HDR for Google One subscribers

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iPhone 11 Pro
iPhone 11 Pro (Image credit: Rene Ritchie/iMore)

What you need to know

  • Google One subscribers can now enjoy improved editing features in Google Photos.
  • Portrait photo editing, smart suggestions, and more are included.

Anyone who is a Google One subscriber and also happens to use Google Photos on iOS is in luck! Google has announced that those people — how many can it really be? — can now take advantage of some new editing features.

Popping up as part of a Google community announcement,, the move requires an iOS device running iOS 14 or later and it mimics similar features already available to Android users.

Here's what's new:

  • Portrait light: Change the position and brightness of light for photos of people.
  • Blur: Blur the background on certain photos of people not captured in portrait mode.
  • Color focus: Desaturate the background, while you keep the foreground color for photos of people.
  • Smart suggestions: Easy to use one-tap edits that adapt to each photo's content.
  • HDR: Enhance brightness and contrast across the image.
  • Sky: Select from several palettes and adjust the color and contrast in the sky.

So there we have it. If you're already using Google Photos and pay for Google One, you just got some new toys to try the next time you're editing an image. Enjoy!

While I'm not sure many would say that Google Photos is the best iPhone photo management or editing solution out there, these changes are still welcome ones for those who use it — whether by choice, or not.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.