We recently announced that Google Photos’ AI editing tools – Magic Editor, Magic Eraser, Photo Unblur and Portrait Light – are coming to all Google Photos users, no subscription required. These powerful features have been incredibly popular and highly anticipated by our wide community of Google Photos users. “It’s really exciting that so many more people will be able to use these tools,” says Google Photos senior product manager Selena Shang. The expansion was no easy feat. The Google Photos engineering team worked to ensure that these features worked across a wide array of Android and iOS devices so that Google Photos’ suite of AI editing tools work well no matter what device you’re using. “It was definitely a challenge,” Selena says, “but worth it!”

Since Selena is an expert on the Google Photos AI editing suite and so many more people now have access to it, we asked for her top tips on using these tools.

1. Layer edits with AI — and traditional — tools to get the photo you want

“Some of the best edits I’ve made are those where I’ve layered edits both within Magic Editor and outside of it,” Selena says. For example, she’ll apply the Portrait preset within Magic Editor, clean up additional distractions after that using Magic Editor and finally adjust the overall tone and brightness of the photo in the regular editor. “Using the full range of tools at my disposal lets me unlock the potential in all of my photos,” Selena says.

2. Magic Editor’s Erase tool and Magic Eraser work best in different scenarios

Magic Editor has a suite of features, one of them being a generative AI-powered Erase tool. Both Magic Editor’s Erase feature and Magic Eraser can help you remove unwanted items from an image, but they each excel in different ways. “Magic Eraser works best for quick fixes on smaller portions of the photo,” Selena says. For example, landscape shots with people or objects in the background are great candidates for using Magic Eraser, and it’s faster. If you have more prominent, complex foreground objects, or objects that take up a larger portion of the photo in general that you want to remove, Magic Editor’s generative AI is going to be more effective at filling the space, Selena explains. In general, it’s better at performing more complex erases.