Google Photos testing manual bokeh blur adjustment and Color Pop effect filter

Ben Schoon | Sep 21 2018 - 11:11 am PT

Google has been working on adding a manual blur adjustment setting to Google Photos for several months now, and the popular “Color Pop” feature has also been hinted for a manual release. Now, it appears Google is testing out those features with some users.

Spotted by one user on Google+ (via Android Police), Google Photos appears to be rolling out a new photo editing tool for artificial bokeh. This option allows users to adjust the focus on a shot after it’s been taken and then change the strength of the blur in the shot. Obviously, this isn’t going to be quite as good as it can be on devices with special hardware (i.e. dual-cameras), but it’s certainly a handy trick. We spotted this coming and even had it enabled as far back as February of this year.

On top of that, Google is also apparently making the Color Pop adjust a manual filter. Color Pop allows Google Photos to pick a primary color from your picture and isolate it, desaturating the rest of the image. This option was previously implemented automatically where Google felt it was appropriate. Having the option to manually set this is definitely a welcome change that ought to make the feature more useful.

It’s unclear when or if Google plans to roll these features out to all users. However, it’s obvious that the company hasn’t given up on them just yet.