Google Photos can now stabilize and share your shaky Apple Live Photos

By Christian de Looper Published September 8, 2016

Google Photos is one of Google’s most popular services right now, and for good reason. The service is easy to use, looks great, and takes most of the hassle out of organizing photos. A few months ago Google released an app called Motion Stills to iOS — that app essentially removed shake from Live Photos and turned them into shareable GIFs and video files. Now, in version 2.0 of Google Photos for iOS, the Motion Stills functionality is built right in.

Motion Stills goes beyond simply making GIFs and reducing shake. The feature also does things like create still images that freeze the background. Live Photos, unfortunately, can only be shared on Apple devices, but Google essentially brings a similar feature to other devices by allowing those Live Photos to be exported to a GIF of movie file. In other words, Google Photos can now be used to stabilize Apple Live Photos, then shared with your friends and family.

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“Using advanced stabilization and rendering originally used in the Motion Stills app, Google Photos can freeze the background in your Live Photos or create sweeping cinematic pans, turning your Live Photos into beautiful, captivating moments,” said Google in a Google+ post. “Easily save it as a looping video and share it with anyone.”

The new features come from Google’s Research division, and actually use some pretty advanced image stabilization algorithms, which work offline and within the Google Photos app. Still, while the basic tools will be in Google Photos, to do more advanced things beyond creating still images and pans, you’ll still need to get the Motion Stills app.

Another great new feature in Google Photos 2.0 is that it’s now far easier to share videos directly to YouTube. You can also sort photos in an album either chronologically or by photos most recently added. You can get the Google Photos app for yourself from the Apple App store, and if you want to get a little more advanced you can get the Motion Stills app, too.

Christian de Looper

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Christian de Looper is a long-time freelance writer who has covered every facet of the consumer tech and electric vehicle…

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