Stephen Schenck / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google Photos overhauled its editor over the summer, but lost its perspective correction tool at the time.
- Google later confirmed its intention to bring that feature back.
- It’s still not publicly accessible, but we can confirm that code for the tool has returned to the app.
Earlier this year, Google revamped the editing experience in Photos — and not everyone was a fan. While there was a fair amount to appreciate about the changes, we also lost some functionality in the process, and maybe top on that list of missing abilities was the app’s tool for perspective correction.
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Perspective correction used to be available in Photos while you were cropping your pics, but with Google’s new cropping interface, perspective correction got left behind. Thankfully, that loss didn’t go unnoticed, and Google ultimately shared that it would be bringing the feature back. What we didn’t know was when it would be back — but we just got our first sign that it’s nearly here.
AssembleDebug / Android Authority
While we’re not yet finding this tool active in a public release of Photos, we have been able to activate the feature using a recent build of the app, confirming Google’s progress towards restoring access. Here’s a look at it in action:
Now, we’re not initially seeing the perspective tool when we open up our editing options — at least with the way Google has currently implemented this UI, we need to start by cropping the pic down a little, or hitting the framing icon in the top-left, before we’ll see the perspective tool icon appear.
Once you get that option to show up, though, the correction tool works just fine. You see a zoomed-in preview for setting your corner points precisely, and can then preview the transformed image before you commit to your edit.
Honestly, this return has been way overdue, and it continues to confound us why Google would ever think to remove perspective correction in the first place. Now that we’re able to at least get it working in a testing environment again, hopefully it won’t be much longer until it’s ready to make its public homecoming.
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