When the Magic Editor was released on the Pixel 8 Pro, I experienced for the first time a useful photo editing tool on a smartphone that could actually do the work of a real photo editor. What amazed me the most was the ability to use generative AI to remove unwanted things and resize to produce better results. But with the Pixel 9 Pro XL, Google is taking it a step further by adding a new feature to Magic Editor called Reimagine.
This new AI-assisted feature is also available on the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro. Not to be mistaken for Pixel Studio, which lets you create an entirely new image from scratch through text prompts, Reimagine lets you select an existing photo and tweak it.
The demo the company showed at its Made by Google event looked perfect, but I was eager to try it out for myself to see if Reimagine could create exactly what I wanted because, frankly, I want it to look as real as possible. So here's what I found:
Remove background and add background
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(Image courtesy of Future)(Image courtesy of Future)(Image courtesy of Future)(Image courtesy of Future)
One useful way Reimagine streamlines my workflow is by changing the background of a photo. While it's easy to circle or highlight what you want to edit in Reimagine, if your photo has a lot of clutter, trying to select the entire background can be a tedious task. Luckily, in the photo above, I have a Pixel 9 Pro XL and an iPhone 15 Pro Max, and the background was flat and high-contrast, making it easy to select.
I told Magic Editor to fill the background with sunflowers, and by adding a defocus effect to the stems and leaves, I think it turned out pretty nicely. The sunflower on the right is in focus, while the one on the left is weirdly blurry.
Adding items to your portrait
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(Image courtesy of Future)(Image courtesy of Future)
Next, I wanted to see how Reimagine would handle editing the person – for example, whether I could change the color of the clothing, add accessories, etc. Unfortunately, even selecting and modifying the small patches in the photo above, I couldn't change the color of the shirt or remove the sunglasses.
However, I was able to generate a “sombrero on cat” pretty easily: the first option turned out perfectly, with fibers running through the sombrero giving it a realistic texture, but the other option was just awful, especially since the sombrero looked like it was floating above the head instead of resting on it.
Weather Expert
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(Image courtesy of Future)(Image courtesy of Future)
I take a lot of photos in my test EV, so I know that one way to make a photo look better with Reimagine is to make the background more spectacular by changing the weather to my liking. In this test, I used the Pixel 9 Pro XL's 48MP telephoto camera with 5x zoom to edit a photo of the American Radiator Building taken from Bryant Park.
After selecting all the parts of the sky I wanted to change, I told it to create “hurricane-like storm clouds.” The end result is convincing in most areas, including the edges of the buildings and the borders of the surrounding trees. Other photo editing tools I've used have had a hard time identifying these borders. My only criticism of the resulting image is that it would have been nice if it also applied a shadow effect to all the buildings to match the exposure of the dark clouds. Neither the buildings nor the trees should look this bright during a storm.
Often too cartoonish
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(Image courtesy of Future)(Image courtesy of Future)
In the photo above, I asked Reimagine to generate a “giant sewer rat eating pizza” in the middle of a subway entrance. It generated exactly what I wanted, but the problem is that it ended up looking cartoony. Unless that's the style I'm going for, I don't think any of the photos are going to convince people that they're real.
Understand the details
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(Image courtesy of Future)(Image courtesy of Future)
While Reimagine can easily handle common photo editing requests, we wanted to see how it handled more complex details. In this final example, we gave Reimagine a command to generate a “hungry wolf in sneakers” for a photo we took in a park.
The wolves look somewhat realistic, but I was surprised that Reimagine took my instruction seriously that they be wearing sneakers. The closest thing to my exact request is the last one in the gallery above, which has two sneaker-wearing wolves in the frame, although the third wolf appears to be cut off, as evidenced by the grassy patch where its head should be.
Conclusion
(Image courtesy of Future)
I know how time-consuming it can be to edit and replace photos, so I'm glad that Reimagine on the Pixel 9 Pro XL helps me save time. There's still room for improvement, but the fact that it's a free feature is worth the money.
Other photo editing apps I use offer similar AI features as a subscription, and I expect that by adding more realistic generated elements to your photos, they'll be harder to tell the real thing and will improve over time.
