Google Photos Can Now Smooth Skin and Whiten Teeth Via New ‘Touch-Up’ Menu

Google Photos is rolling out a new feature that can help to beautify someone by “subtly” improving features like skin texture or even whitening teeth.

The update, called “Touch up, was announced by Google today and borrows its name from the lexicon of photography. Photo editors and photographers, particularly those working in fashion or advertising, know all about touching up an image and are professionally known as retouchers.

But with updates like this one, retouching an image when it relates to someone’s appearance is being rolled out to the masses. “Your photos should capture how you feel in the moment,” Google writes on its blog, The Keyword. “That’s why we’re introducing new touch-up tools in Google Photos’ image editor to help you apply subtle enhancements that refine skin texture, remove blemishes, brighten eyes, or whiten teeth in seconds.”

Google says that it’s straightforward to use. “Simply select a face in your photo and choose which tool you want to use: heal, smooth, under-eyes, irises, teeth, eyebrows, or lips. Then adjust the intensity of the chosen effects,” the company writes, while providing the example video below.

Left out of The Keyword post is the mention that all of the touch-up tools are powered by deep learning, or artificial intelligence. In the above example video, the changes made to the two young women really are subtle, but as Google mentions, users can play with the intensity of the tools, and everyone wants to look better in their photos, so it’s easy to see why this might be a popular feature.

Users should be aware that the new touch-up tools are being gradually rolled out globally in the Google Photos app on Android devices with at least 4 GB of RAM and Android 9.0 and upward.

The Updates Keep on Coming

It’s the second update for Google Photos in a short space of time; earlier today PetaPixel reported on a new feature that lets users create “personalized” AI images by connecting its AI model, Gemini, to users’ Google Photos library.

The update allows users who opt in to connect Personal Intelligence with the Gemini chatbot. Once enabled, Nano Banana 2 can generate images using information from a user’s private Google Photos library, removing the need to manually upload images or provide detailed descriptions.

Image credits: Google