Google+ as a public social media website was shut down in 2019, but Google had kept it going as a shadow of its former self for enterprise clients in the form of Google Currents. Today, Google says that shambling corpse will finally be allowed to die for good.
Google’s acquisition of Nik Software some time ago caused quite a stir in the photography community. Creators of a number of plugins, filters and the editing app Snapseed, Nik Software had a lot to offer Google in the world of photography.
And little by little, as Google has continued to improve its photo platform and services, more and more influence and integration from the acquisition is making its way to the end user. Case in point is Google+ Photos' latest update, which features a number of Snapseed-esque editing tools.
Flickr's recent attempt at a major website redesign didn't go over very well with many of its users, so now the Yahoo-owned company is taking the feedback it received to try again. A help page on the Flickr website reveals that a new photo page is currently being rolled out across the service.
It's hardly news that Google+ is doing its damnedest to secure itself as the social network of choice for the photographic community. And the network's ability to handle full-size RAW uploads, in addition to the easy-to-manage system and powerful new in-browser editing tools, in many ways already makes it a shoo-in for that title.
But get ready, because Google isn't done yet. Another update has been pushed Google+'s way, and this time it concerns your RAW photos. Or, more specifically, how good they look when they're automatically converted to JPEGs for viewing.
Snapseed's team has been hard at work since their company was acquired by Google last September. They've already put new photo filters in the Google+ app and some auto-enhance tools in Google+, and now they're working on something even grander: turning Google+ into a full-fledged, browser-based photo editing tool.
Google's Plus social networking site -- now in its second year -- has received a series of updates that are expected to make photo sharing on the service a bit more convenient, and a bit less painful. That's according to Google's Jon Emerson, who has posted some updates to Plus on his very own Google Plus page as of Friday.
Right after Google I/O wrapped up in May, we shared the news that Google's personal image search had just gotten a whole lot better. The tech giant claimed that you could now search through yours and your friends photos based on visual content, even if the photos themselves weren't labeled or tagged.
At the time, all we knew was that the system used "computer vision and machine learning" to detect subjects like "flowers," "food" or "car" and generate searchable tag data that makes your photos easier to find. Now, thanks to Google's Research blog, we're getting a bit more detail on the tech under the hood.
Following the Google+ updates last week at Google I/O that overall improved the photo experience for its users, Mountain View-based Google is now making that very updated experience for users of its Google+ Android application.
The update, which boasts 41 new features total, includes Auto Backup (stores photos as you take them), Auto Highlight (allows for the ability to browse top shots from added sets), Auto Enhance (automatically enhances images), and even something called Auto Awesome (which creates fun new versions of pictures, such as panoramas and animations, based on images already in your library).
A couple of weeks ago, we shared a hack by photographer Trey Ratcliff that allowed you to upload your photos to Google+ at full resolution by using Google Drive. Android users could already upload full-sized photos from their phone, the hack simply allowed desktop users to do the same.
Fortunately, the hack is no longer necessary now that Google has caught on and integrated the ability right into Google+ itself.
Retro filters are still doing their steady march toward becoming ubiquitous across camera and photo-sharing mobile apps. Today, Google announced a new update to its iPhone and Android Google+ apps that adds these filters for people who want to make their photographs look "retro."
Facebook announced its photos-only news feed filter earlier this month (alongside a major News Feed revamp) at a major press event surrounded by much fanfare. Now, Google has followed suit with its Google+ social network -- albeit much, much more quietly.
The service unveiled a new photos-only feed today, but instead of holding a major press event about it, it was outed by Google engineer Dave Cohen through his Google+ page.
Many photographers are uncomfortable sharing their work at higher resolutions online, preferring instead to share smaller (and perhaps watermarked) photographs. If that doesn't describe you, then you might be happy to know that you can now share full-resolution photographs with your followers, friends, and family on Google+.
In July 2011, we shared a report that Google was planning to rebrand Picasa as Google Photos later that year. Well, that didn't happen, but it still looks like the Picasa brand name is on track to be sunsetted.
Google has begun redirecting the Picasa Web Albums URL to personal Google+ Photo Album pages.
When the new Google Chromebook Pixel was announced a week ago, one of the new apps announced alongside it was for managing photographs. Photography played a bit part in the laptop's design: it has a 12.85-inch, 4.3 million pixel touchscreen (the highest pixel density of any laptop) that has a strange aspect ratio of 3:2 -- the aspect ratio of classic 35mm film.
Over the last couple of days Google has been hosting the "Hangout In Real Life" Google+ Photographers Conference in San Francisco, and if anything has come out of the conference at all, it's that Google is intent on making Google+ the photo sharing service of the future.
We now have an official page on Google+! Add us to your circles …
The success of Instagram has shown that photo filters are very much in demand with the general population. Facebook is rumored to be working on its own retro filters, but Google has beaten it to the punch: today the company introduced a wide range of creative filters to Google+'s Creative Kit. The filters (called "Effects") include looks that mimic daguerreotypes, Reala 400 film, Polaroid pictures, Lomo, Holga, and even cross processed film.
Google+ is becoming pretty popular among photographers as a way to share work and connect with others. If you've been thinking about jumping in but don't know where to begin, Scott Kelby and Co. made this helpful (and free) hour-long primer with tips on how to use the service effectively.
PetaPixel doesn’t have an official profile on Google+ yet because we’re waiting for …
A little update to the recent brouhaha over Google+’s Terms of Service: …
Last year Scott Bourne caused some commotion among photo-enthusiasts by claiming that Twitter's ToS forced photographers to give up rights to photos shared through the service. After Google launched their new Google+ social network, Bourne again wrote a very similar post warning his readers about the ToS. We weren't planning on weighing in, but seeing that the FUD has spread to our comments and even The Washington Post, we'd like to clear some of it away for our readers.
For photo enthusiasts, Google’s new Google+ social network is something like Flickr mixed with Facebook. It has the social …