I love the camera on my Pixel 10 Pro. I’ve trusted Google’s extremely natural approach to image processing for years, reaching for its lifelike tones over Samsung’s punchy reds and greens ever since I switched from the Galaxy S10 to the Pixel 5. However, I’ve always had one little problem with Google’s realistic approach: Sometimes I feel like my images are missing some character.
So, when Google announced Ask Photos as a brand-new way to edit my entire camera roll of thoroughly average snaps, I jumped at the chance to try it out. I grabbed my Pixel 10 Pro XL, headed out the door, and captured a few quick shots to mess around with. Here’s how my adventure into the world of Gemini-powered photo editing went.
The power of the perfect prompt
Ryan Haines / Android Authority
I won’t lie — it only took about five minutes of walking around Baltimore’s Fells Point neighborhood before I had the shot I knew I wanted. I’d grabbed a few others of flowers, car-lined streets, and the buildings I pass daily, but one shot of a pair of buoys at the edge of the harbor jumped out to me. Why? Well, it has a couple of distinct colors, a reflection, and different textures like the water and the wood of the promenade for me to explore.
So, I headed home to escape the summer heat and opened Google Photos. Once there, I tapped on the original shot of the buoys and pressed the Edit button. Thankfully, Google has made it impossible to miss its Ask Photos editor, which pops up at the bottom of the screen with a Help me edit prompt inside. And, once or twice, I did let it help, but for the most part, I took editing into my own hands and let my imagination run a little wild.
Original image Make the water more blue Add a seagull on the orange buoy Make the white buoy smaller
In this first set of images, I kept things pretty simple. I wanted to change one element at a time to see how Gemini and the Tensor G5 would handle a basic request. For the most part, they did fine — I can’t deny that the water in the second image is bluer, and the white buoy on the far right side is, indeed, smaller. Yes, that’s mostly because it’s a totally different buoy, but it’s still technically what I asked for.
I’m a little split on the seagull I asked Gemini to add, though. On one hand, its feet look like they’re actually on the buoy, following the slope pretty nicely. However, it seems a bit more like a sticker around the top of its head, and where the tail overlaps with the wood of the promenade. At the very least, Google handled the colors of the gull almost perfectly for the lighting.
Original image Change the color of the white buoy to green Erase both buoys Replace the water with sand
Moving to the second set, I pushed the Pixel 10 Pro XL a little harder with slightly more detailed requests. This time, I asked it to swap the color of the white buoy to green, which it did perfectly. Then, I requested that Ask Photos remove both buoys and leave me with an unbroken view of the harbor, which it… kind of did? I’ll give it partial credit at best because although it erased what I asked for, it left the reflection of the buoys in the water, which almost looks stranger.
On the right side, I wanted to see how Gemini would handle completely swapping the background of a shot, so I kept the coastal theme and went for sand. Although it once again mostly worked, it also looks like Gemini tried to add extra buoys behind the two from the original image. I certainly didn’t ask for extra flotation devices, so I’m wondering if Google is simply filling requests using other images that already exist.
Original image Enhance the colors of the entire image Replace the orange buoy with a basketball, replace the white buoy with a baseball, and replace the water with grass Make the colors look like this was taken at sunset
And now, for the most chaotic replacement I could think of. Yes, the basic Enhance prompt worked as expected, making the orange buoy a bit brighter and the white buoy a bit warmer, but that was a pretty easy request. To the right, I was particularly impressed with how the Pixel 10 Pro XL handled swapping both balls and replacing the background in one fell swoop. I wanted all of the water to become grass, so that’s not exactly right, but there’s some grass, which is pretty good.
Oh, how far we’ve come since Magic Eraser
Ryan Haines / Android Authority
All told, I’m pretty impressed with what I got out of Ask Photos. I’m at least somewhat used to new Pixel features coming out half-baked, so getting almost all of what I asked for from the Pixel 10 Pro XL is a significant improvement. Are there still spots where Gemini’s fill-ins look a little wonky? Sure, that’s the nature of generative AI. However, they’re fewer and further between than they used to be — and I’ve been using Magic Eraser since the day it launched.
In fact, I’m kind of floored by how far Google’s AI-powered editor has come in just a few years. At first, it didn’t allow for much more than erasing people and objects from photos, and when it did, the results usually weren’t that good. You’d get artifacts and odd colors all over the place, but it would eliminate what you asked for.
Ask Photos is really good... almost too good. Almost.
Then, Google added the camouflage feature to skip the artifacts while making objects less visible. It worked, but it almost drew more attention to the finished edit than if I had erased what I wanted. Personally, I mostly stuck with erasing over camouflaging to keep my photos a little more honest — at least right up until Magic Editor added the ability to manually resize and relocate objects.
So now, to have the ability to type out anything I want Google Photos to do and have it spring into action feels like almost too much power. When I don’t like the way Ask Photos renders, I can simply ask it to try over and over until I like what I get. It’s probably not the most authentic editing tool, but I can easily see how it will become my most powerful.
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