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If any Google Photos product people are here... Since you're ending free unlimited photo storage, I badly want a feature that automatically finds all groupings

by dangwu 6y ago

If any Google Photos product people are here... Since you're ending free unlimited photo storage, I badly want a feature that automatically finds all groupings of similar photos and deletes all but the best one (least blurry, most smiles, whatever you decide). Whenever I take photos, I tend to spam the shutter button, so I end up with 3+ photos of anything and everything. I could stay on Google Photos for many, many more years if I had this auto clean up capability.

elliottkember 6y ago
I don't know whether you're on iOS, but if you are, the app on the app store called "Gemini" has been a game-changer for me in this regard.
- amazon_throw 6y ago
  Is this the one? https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gemini-photos-gallery-cleaner/id1277110040 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gemini-photos-gallery-cleaner/... (There are a lot of "Gemini" bitcoin apps, apparently...)
- adrr 6y ago
  Gemini is a great app. I wish apple photos or google photos had similar features. Even Lightroom needs it since 1/5 of my photos are out of focus.
  - ghostpepper 6y ago
    I like the idea but I’m a bit put off by the new privacy tags on the App Store: this app uses product interaction, device ID and user ID track me? No thanks Off topic but I also hate the new trend of apps not telling you how much the full version costs until after you’ve installed it.
Solocomplex 6y ago
Pixel motion photos Top Shot uses AI to do this.
boatsie 6y ago
I wish this existed as well but with the added element of AI based merging where it can take the best in focus faces (eyes open and smiling) and composite them into a single image. Seems very possible but I haven’t heard of an implementation.
- ronyeh 6y ago
  Google Photos used to have this! It had a auto magic filter that combined multiple shots into a magic shot with no blinks and all smiles. Like most things from Google, the engineers and PMs on that feature got promoted and the feature eventually went away. It was called Auto Awesome: https://picasageeks.com/tag/combining-pictures-to-get-the-best-smiles/ https://picasageeks.com/tag/combining-pictures-to-get-the-be... https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-trigger-the-Auto-Awesome-in-Google+-Photos https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-trigger-the-Auto-Awesome-in-G... I had some great results from that feature, e.g. from big group shots at a party.
darkwizard42 6y ago
+1. Based on all the other cool search capabilities they have around recognizing your face/people's faces/objects, I'm surprised they don't have a "recognize duplicates" / "recognize bad pics" filter yet...especially when they know you have a bulk or automatic upload into your Photos account from your devices.
lxgr 6y ago
I'd second that, or alternatively just a plan that lets me upload unlimited photos for a monthly fee like Flickr used to do very early on.
- mywacaday 6y ago
  Google will give you 2 TB a year for $99, gives me some confidence that it won't go away as easy.
- mikepurvis 6y ago
  Honestly, though, it's still a bad experience browsing other search-based tags and having to wade through all these dupes. I'd rather a clean way of just removing them at the source. Possibly a compromise could be an auto-collapse function where Photos shows it as a stack with the AI-proposed best pick on top, and an option to fan out and make your own judgment. That doesn't on its own fix the storage side, but it would be a small step from there to a one-click "trash everything from this stack other than the featured item. Apple kind of does this with live photos, but it would be nice to have GPhotos able to figure it out as well after the fact, since we've all been doing the "take many pics of it just in case" thing since forever.
  - cptskippy 6y ago
    > Possibly a compromise could be an auto-collapse function where Photos shows it as a stack with the AI-proposed best pick on top I could see this being done locally on a device and having a dis-or-dat style interface to quickly choose between competing photos.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  This exists. It uses you general google storage quota (shared with gmail, gdrive, etc).
  - lxgr 6y ago
    This is different, though: Flickr used to charge for the capability to upload, Google charges for keeping the photos available.
SamBam 6y ago
...and if any are here let me add: Can we please please get a return of the Assistant-style creations? All that exists now is the Instagram Stories-style auto-playing albums. Does anyone actually like these better?
jcomis 6y ago
Or please allow me to re-upload previously uploaded "high quality" free photos to "original quality" once I pay. After years of being a paid customer I have still not found a way to do this.
- SamBam 6y ago
  How are they going to recover the bits that were lost? It was free because the images were smaller.
aceazzameen 6y ago
You just reminded how the old Android camera app (maybe Samsung?) used to have a "best" mode. Snap some photos, review the best one(s) and only commit to saving your choices. It was something that could have probably used a UX refresh, but was instead removed entirely in future phones. I'd love if cloud services implemented something similar.

by dangwu 6y ago

elliottkember 6y ago

I don't know whether you're on iOS, but if you are, the app on the app store called "Gemini" has been a game-changer for me in this regard.

amazon_throw 6y ago
Is this the one? https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gemini-photos-gallery-cleaner/id1277110040 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gemini-photos-gallery-cleaner/... (There are a lot of "Gemini" bitcoin apps, apparently...)
adrr 6y ago
Gemini is a great app. I wish apple photos or google photos had similar features. Even Lightroom needs it since 1/5 of my photos are out of focus.
- ghostpepper 6y ago
  I like the idea but I’m a bit put off by the new privacy tags on the App Store: this app uses product interaction, device ID and user ID track me? No thanks Off topic but I also hate the new trend of apps not telling you how much the full version costs until after you’ve installed it.

Solocomplex 6y ago

Pixel motion photos Top Shot uses AI to do this.

boatsie 6y ago

I wish this existed as well but with the added element of AI based merging where it can take the best in focus faces (eyes open and smiling) and composite them into a single image. Seems very possible but I haven’t heard of an implementation.

ronyeh 6y ago
Google Photos used to have this! It had a auto magic filter that combined multiple shots into a magic shot with no blinks and all smiles. Like most things from Google, the engineers and PMs on that feature got promoted and the feature eventually went away. It was called Auto Awesome: https://picasageeks.com/tag/combining-pictures-to-get-the-best-smiles/ https://picasageeks.com/tag/combining-pictures-to-get-the-be... https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-trigger-the-Auto-Awesome-in-Google+-Photos https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-trigger-the-Auto-Awesome-in-G... I had some great results from that feature, e.g. from big group shots at a party.

darkwizard42 6y ago

+1. Based on all the other cool search capabilities they have around recognizing your face/people's faces/objects, I'm surprised they don't have a "recognize duplicates" / "recognize bad pics" filter yet...especially when they know you have a bulk or automatic upload into your Photos account from your devices.

lxgr 6y ago

I'd second that, or alternatively just a plan that lets me upload unlimited photos for a monthly fee like Flickr used to do very early on.

mywacaday 6y ago
Google will give you 2 TB a year for $99, gives me some confidence that it won't go away as easy.
mikepurvis 6y ago
Honestly, though, it's still a bad experience browsing other search-based tags and having to wade through all these dupes. I'd rather a clean way of just removing them at the source. Possibly a compromise could be an auto-collapse function where Photos shows it as a stack with the AI-proposed best pick on top, and an option to fan out and make your own judgment. That doesn't on its own fix the storage side, but it would be a small step from there to a one-click "trash everything from this stack other than the featured item. Apple kind of does this with live photos, but it would be nice to have GPhotos able to figure it out as well after the fact, since we've all been doing the "take many pics of it just in case" thing since forever.
- cptskippy 6y ago
  > Possibly a compromise could be an auto-collapse function where Photos shows it as a stack with the AI-proposed best pick on top I could see this being done locally on a device and having a dis-or-dat style interface to quickly choose between competing photos.
nicoburns 6y ago
This exists. It uses you general google storage quota (shared with gmail, gdrive, etc).
- lxgr 6y ago
  This is different, though: Flickr used to charge for the capability to upload, Google charges for keeping the photos available.

SamBam 6y ago

...and if any are here let me add: Can we please please get a return of the Assistant-style creations? All that exists now is the Instagram Stories-style auto-playing albums. Does anyone actually like these better?

jcomis 6y ago

Or please allow me to re-upload previously uploaded "high quality" free photos to "original quality" once I pay. After years of being a paid customer I have still not found a way to do this.

SamBam 6y ago
How are they going to recover the bits that were lost? It was free because the images were smaller.

aceazzameen 6y ago

You just reminded how the old Android camera app (maybe Samsung?) used to have a "best" mode. Snap some photos, review the best one(s) and only commit to saving your choices. It was something that could have probably used a UX refresh, but was instead removed entirely in future phones. I'd love if cloud services implemented something similar.