Talk:Google Photos

Comparison of costs

In the cited article [9] Dvorak states "[A portable hard disk is] not free but it is cheap." That's the opposite of "less expensive" as written in the wiki-article. 95.90.226.79 (talk) 16:44, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

DYK nomination

{{Did you know nominations/Google Photos}} – czar 22:19, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Wikilink-redirects

Hi @KamranMackey: I just wanted to explain the situation about wikilink-redirects. Although I do understand your point that it might look better to avoid a redirect, and that on the internet we are very used to links working naturally, there are a few good reasons not to avoid redirects. The first is that it takes up unnecessary space in the source editing when the link leads to the same place, and the second is that if every wikilink to the page is "white balance" and not "color balance", then that's actually great information for Wikipedia to use to improve its pages. But don't worry, you're not alone in thinking that redirects are weird, I used to think the same. If you have any questions, I am available to answer. :) LocalNet (talk) 20:19, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi.

Redirects are holy! Worship them! Blasphemers will be burnt!

Seriously though, WP:NOTBROKEN.

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 04:56, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Lead rewrite

@LocalNet: per your recent reverts, I believe the lead currently contains an excess of info and "trivia". I am guessing your main complaint is over my removal of this sentence from the lead rather than the reorganization.

" Shortly after release, Photos incorrectly marked a photo of two African Americans as "Gorillas", and Google issued an apology. "

I believe that this, while notable, doesn't necessary merit inclusion in the lead. In defense of the other structure of the lead, having the large blocky paragraphs as-is right now I believe is unnecessary and that my reorganization of content by features / history is more logical. Obviously quarreling over the lead is a matter of personal preference to a degree, but I still dislike how the lead is currently laid out as being borderline un-readable and intimidating to parse through.

Regards, Shaded0 (talk) 17:11, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Hi @Shaded0: Thank you for starting a discussion! My first point of objection to your edits was the fact that the reorganization meant moving information in the lead that did not have sources into the article, meaning issues with duplicate information, a lack of verifiability and making the lead incomplete. If we take a look at this edit, it states "Google Photos received critical acclaim at its launch in May 2015. In May 2017, Google announced several updates to Google Photos", which are two completely different sentence intentions, one of which is given prominence for being new while the other isn't given adequate explanation as to why it was positively reviewed. Currently, the lead summarizes the "History", "Features", and "Reception" sections both in a general manner and in some detail. The first paragraph is just two sentences. Removing information from the lead also means removing information valuable to users who don't read the article in detail. An example of that is the fact that Google Photos did not "just" receive critical acclaim, but also privacy notability and it made a recognition failure. If we compare this lead section to another article, such as Windows 10, we can see that it's not "wrong" for a lead to feature blocks of information. Regular use of punctuation can improve readability. LocalNet (talk) 17:20, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Sure fine. As it stands atm the 3rd paragraph looks a little too promotional, and editorializing to promote PoV. I specifically don't think its necessary to mention the following:

"It was declared "the best" in cloud photo storage by some reviewers, and Google's decision to decouple the Photos service from Google+ was praised. "

2nd paragraph should still somehow be notably condensed. It's not necessary to include absolutely all features/functions in the lead just because you can. That's why the subsection is there if the reader is so inclined to read more.

Shaded0 (talk) 18:20, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Hmm... I believe the fact that the sentence states "by some reviewers" would be sufficient to establish the context that it wasn't Wikipedia's opinion, but I don't want it to look promotional, so I am willing to compromise and drop that sentence :) As for the second paragraph, it doesn't "include absolutely all features". It mentions recognition technology, automatically generated albums, automatic photo animations, past memories, and automatic white balance and video stabilization, as well as May 2017 updates, all of which are functionality I believe are unique to Google Photos. It doesn't mention quality settings, web galleries, easy social sharing, best photo highlights, video animations, photo orientation switch, PhotoScan app, "Deep blue" slider, "Albums" tab on Android, lightweight preview mode, or Archive functionality. While the lead isn't supposed to go into extreme detail, it is supposed to establish the notability of the subject and cover its various sections. Is there any particular feature you would drop from the lead? LocalNet (talk) 18:36, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Just a thought, but these three sentences together seem to me to be unwieldy, run-on sentences and try to push too many ideas into the paragraph. Not that you'd need to remove these, but shortening or breaking into another paragraph if all the detail is necessary.

"Users can search for anything in photos, with the service returning results from three major categories: People, Places, and Things. Google Photos recognizes faces, grouping similar ones together; geographic landmarks (such as the Eiffel Tower); and subject matter, including birthdays, buildings, animals, food, and more. Google implements different forms of machine learning into the Photos service, particularly its recognition of photo contents, as well as enabling features including automatically generated albums consisting of the best photos taken during an event or trip, automatic animations in which similar photos are combined into a quick video, surfacing past memories at significant times, and automatic white balance correction and video stabilization." Shaded0 (talk) 20:15, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

I do see your point. That sentence barely has any punctuation, and seemingly goes on without a natural ending. How about this:

"Users can search for anything in photos, with the service returning results from three major categories: People, Places, and Things. Google Photos recognizes faces, grouping similar ones together; geographic landmarks (such as the Eiffel Tower); and subject matter, including birthdays, buildings, animals, food, and more. Google implements different forms of machine learning into the Photos service, particularly its recognition of photo contents, as well as enabling features that can automatically generate albums, animate similar photos into quick videos, surface past memories at significant times, and improve the quality of photos and videos."

It drops extra words such as "in which similar photos are combined", "consisting of the best photos taken during an event or trip", and doesn't specify "white balance correction and video stabilization", thereby leaving the door open to future quality improvements that may be added. Thoughts? :) Also, just a question. We both agreed that the "best" quote in the lead could be removed, but I noticed that the following sentence states "Reviewers liked the updated Photos service", hinting at the "decoupling" phrase in the previous lead sentence. Do you want to remove the "decouple" phrase as well? If yes, we'd just have to reword the next sentence. If not, we can specifically remove the "best" quote. LocalNet (talk) 08:14, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Haven't received a reply to this, but I will go forward and try to change the lead to the best of my abilities based on the conversation here. LocalNet (talk) 13:29, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Logo???

What happened to the logo? Is it all black for anyone else? RES2773 (talk) 20:17, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Size comparisons

"It reached 100 million users after five months, 200 million after one year, and 500 million as of May 2017, with Google announcing that over 1.2 billion photos are uploaded to the service every day". There's only so much value in the metrics focused on the number of uploads on the last days and on the total number of users who ever interacted with the service (basically any logged-in Android user is unwittingly enlisted as Google Photos user). It would be useful to know when/whether Google Photos surpassed Flickr in number of super-users (by some definition) and Facebook in sheer size. Some sources indicate that daily photos uploads on Facebook are in the order of the hundreds millions. Nemo 16:50, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Intro issues

I don't see any discussion on this but the intro has some issues:

"Up until June of 2021, Google Photos was popular for giving users free, unlimited storage for photos up to 16 megapixels and videos up to 1080p resolution." is 'foreseeing the future', as if stating that Google Photos will stop being popular. That shouldn't be the case. The change this references is Google's recent announcement that it'd stop giving free and unlimited storage, requiring payment for unlimited storage instead. As it stands, the service is free/unlimited for now and this part is jumping the gun. I'm removing the 'Up until June of 2021' and changing the past tense to present tense. ASpacemanFalls (talk) 17:49, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Hi @ASpacemanFalls: I found about changes to Google free tier when I came to read this article, however information in the current form is confusing and needs further edit. We read in the introduction: "Google Photos used to give users free, unlimited storage for photos up to 16 megapixels and videos up to 1080p resolution till November 10, 2020." and then in the main article "In November 2020, Google announced that from June 1, 2021 "high quality" free photo backups will no longer be offered [...]". This needs clarification --148.64.28.57 (talk) 04:35, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing this up. I have fixed the issue. InfiniteNexus (talk) 04:48, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

@InfiniteNexus: Shouldn't "Google Photos used to give users free, unlimited storage for photos up to 16 megapixels and videos up to 1080p resolution until June 1, 2021" be worded in the future tense instead, as the date is still a ways off? "Google Photos will give users free, unlimited storage for photos up to 16 megapixels and videos up to 1080p resolution until June 1, 2021." And then we can add the caveat that the service will stop being free or the readers will reach it themselves in the last paragraph of the intro. ASpacemanFalls (talk) 11:17, 17 November 2020 (UTC)