One of my favorite apps to use daily is Google Photos. It’s been four years since the app first came on the scene and I feel has been one of the premiere photo storage / sharing services around.
If you are unaware of how Google Photos works, it allows you to upload an infinite number of photos (and videos) in “High Quality” no matter what device you use, or you can save it in “Original Quality” which does take up some of your Google Account space. Now if you have a Google Pixel device (besides the 3A series) you can go “Original” unlimited aplenty.
What Google Photos is showing off today is the ability to make Photos more personal but also shareable. First off is they have created what’s called Google Photos “Memories”. If you are familiar with some social apps like Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat there are occurrences when you will get memories of prior events.
Google Photos makes it more personal as its all photos that YOU have taken. Also, you can select or deselect what content is shown.
Now if you are like me and have a mess of photos, I tend to do searches via words like “dog” or “food”. Now you will be able to search your photos via text. So, anything such as recipes and printouts Google will be able to find them in your Photos app. I saw a demo of it today but would be interested to see how well it works overall.
Google Photos has been big on sharing your content with others and will be adding features that allow you to share photo albums to family members across devices such as the Google Nest Hub and even provide commentary on some photos. This will be private, and you can keep the convo going if you want. This feature will be coming soon to Google Photos.
Google Photos love your digital album of content but know sometimes folks would like to have it offline as well. They have been offering “photo books” in hardcover and softcover stylings but is revealing new ways to showcase your photos via prints.
First off is Canvas Prints. Always been an eye catcher with photos wrapping around end to end. There are options to change borders as well. These will be available in three different sizes, 8×8, 12×14, and 16×20. Pricing starts at $19.99 and will be delivered straight to the home.
Next up is Photo Prints. It’s been an age-old standard for decades and Google Photos wants to bring this familiarity to its fanbase. You will be able to order 4×6 photos directly within the app just by selecting the photos you want and then the shopping cart. Once you do that you can pick the closest CVS or Walmart, get your pricing and an estimated time for pickup. You will pay for the photos once you pick them up. Google’s choice of stores is smart, and I think this will be a win for those that love to print out photos which spans over 11,000 locations total in the U.S. From the printing I did, photos look to range in price of around $0.23-$0.25.
Kodak Moments is providing the printing tech power behind CVS’ service and this will give Google Photos access to 7,400+ CVS Pharmacies. CVS gave us a quick demo of how easily it is to use Kodak Moments, selecting the photos and then printing them out. I printed out some photos using the Google Photos app by selecting the onsite CVS, picked up in a matter of minutes and quality was impressive.
