the Photos application is finally evolving with these 2 new features inspired by smartphones

Photo editing becomes more powerful on Windows with the ability to quickly blur the background of any image, as well as search for a photo based on its content.

Microsoft is currently testing several updates for Windows Insiders members for its various proprietary tools integrated into Windows. After Paint and the screenshot tool, it’s the turn of the Photos application to receive a rather powerful update which is also inspired by what our smartphones can offer: the addition of background blur as well as searching for photos by their content and location.

Background blur comes to Photos

The Photos app is gradually becoming a pretty powerful image editing tool. With this update, you will have the ability to blur the background behind a subject in seconds. The editing tool will automatically detect the subject you want to isolate via the new “Background Blur” option, which will also allow you to adjust its intensity. You can also refine this blur area with the brush tool, for a perfect result.

More powerful photo search

But Microsoft didn’t stop there and is significantly improving the search for photos saved on OneDrive. You will soon be able to search for a photo based on its content or even its context. Concretely, if you type “Forest”, “Car”, “Cats” or even “Party” in the input bar, Windows will show you all those that match these criteria. Better late than never: Android and iOS users have been able to do this on their smartphones for years.

The search will also allow you to filter your photos according to where they were taken, an option that will be possible for all the images on your system, including those synchronized to iCloud, Apple’s service being supported natively since then. ‘last year.

Among the other new features of the Photos viewer, we also find support for animated photos from Android devices, and in particular Samsung. Regarding video, editing options are now accessible just above the gallery view.

As usual, these new features are first available to program members Windows Insidersin the Canary and Developer channels, before being offered to the general public shortly.

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