New feature lets users colorize black and white photos in Google Photos

Google Photos is getting a function to color black and white photos, for example from the time when color cameras did not exist. The American company announced this on Tuesday. Also, the Photos app can recognize documents and save them as PDF.

The photo coloring feature uses artificial intelligence to guess which colors would actually appear in that particular scene, according to Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s keynote address at developer conference I/O.

The feature is part of a series of innovations in the Photos service. For example, there will be Smart Actions, with which the software makes changes that are available with a click. That can be adjusting the exposure of a photo, but it can also be about recognizing a person in the foreground and then making the background a less saturated color. In addition, the software will recognize documents, after which users can save them in PDF. It is not necessary that the documents are straight from the top of the photo: the software can straighten it.

The changes will be available in the coming months, but Pichai didn’t reveal when exactly that will be. Google Photos is the photo service of the search giant and came out three years ago.