Chromebooks are getting a new video editor from Google Photos with some pro-level features
Ah, Google Photos. Even afterdropping free photo and video backupslast year, it’s still a great place to archive them because features likeface and pet detectionandgeographical sortingmake it easy to dig them up whenever they’re needed. It’s also good for a quick filter or edit —the video editor that debuted last year on mobilewas definitely a step up from its barebones predecessor, but it wasn’t going to blow anyone’s socks off. This fall, though, Google is telling us to get ready for a ChromeOS-native, non-linear video editing experience. If that wasn’t enough, we’ve got another thing coming to us.
Inits company blog, Google says the new editor will allow users to create multi-clip movies easily with smart automation features. Photos can stack stills and clips together based on theme prompts such as “loved ones” or “friendship movie.” Users are then able to select the people and pets they want to highlight as well as the specific moments in some of the selected clips. Filters, includingReal Tone, will also be available to apply.
The editor will be able to directly work with cloud-based assets in addition to local ones. Clips can be trimmed, spliced, and adjusted for color and exposure as needed. The full suite of vectors for photo edits will also be available for stills included in the project. Users can access the new editor through opening a video from the file manager or the gallery app. Currently, Chromebook owners would have to open the Google Photos Android app and then download the asset before it could be edited.
Don’t take all of the user interface you see here at face value as the experience is months away from being final. We did get clarification about that markup icon seen in the screenshot above — the video editor won’t include the ability to mark up any video clips, but photos and videos that have been marked up can be included in a project.
If you’re looking for a little more muscle for your Chromebook video editing experience, Google says it’ll also bring iOS stalwart LumaFusion to the platform at some point, though we haven’t been given a timeframe on that. Publisher LumaTouch has been on record saying it’s been actively developing Android and ChromeOS clients sincelast Octoberand was supposed to have gotten LumaFusion ontoSamsung’s Galaxy Storeby the end of the first half of this year. That hasn’t happened yet. But hope springs eternal, even when throwing around the word “soon.”
LumaTouch has clarified to us that in sure it what Samsung may have announced, it did not make a formal announcement about availability and that an Android launch is still on track for 2022.
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This article is sponsored by Total Wireless.
