In brief
- A teardown of Google Photos for Android has revealed a video presets feature.
- Four video presets are available, providing automatic trimming, slow motion, zoom and tracking tools.
- The details come after we first spotted the feature, known as Spotlights, earlier this month.
Earlier this month, we first spotted hints that Google Photos might be getting a “Spotlights” feature to automatically crop videos and more. It didn’t take long, but now we have a much better idea of what to expect.
A APK teardown helps predict features that might be built into a service in the future based on code in progress. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it into a public release.
We took a closer look at version 6.97 of Google Photos for Android and found that the Spotlights feature is now called Presets and offers four predefined options for videos. These video presets are basically editing tools that can be accessed with a tap and include the following options:
- Basic cut: Reduce to the decisive moment and emphasize colors.
- Slow Motion – Applies a slow motion effect to the selected area.
- Zoom – Automatically zoom in and out of the video in the selected area.
- Track – Automatically tracks and zooms in on the person in the video.
We were able to enable these video presets and were then prompted to install 3MB of editing tools. You can find the presets by navigating to the video you want and then tapping Edit > Preferences (between “Video” and “Crop”).
You can also adjust the duration of the effect with a slider, so if you want the slow motion effect to last a little longer, you can adjust the slider accordingly. It’s also worth noting that you can’t export a video that uses all four presets, only the Basic Cut option plus one of the other three presets. We’re not sure if this will change when video presets become available.
We certainly hope that these options will soon be available on Google Photos as well, as they could make some basic video editing a lot easier. We keep our fingers crossed that the platform will get even more handy video editing tools like this in the future.
