Windows Photos: Windows Photos app gets new features: Background blur, search, motion photo support and more

Microsoft has rolled out an update for Windows Photos. The latest update is available to Windows Insidersin the Canary and Dev Channels. The update introduces multiple new features, as well as other fixes and improvements based on community feedback. It is important to note that these features will be initially available only for beta testers. Microsoft is expected to roll out these features for end users as well with a stable version of the Photos app.However, the company hasn’t confirmed any release window for the stable version of the app. Here’s a list of new features and improvements coming to theWindows Photos app.
Windows Photos app: Background Blur
This feature helps to make the subject of a photo stands out and will be available in the Edit mode and selecting the new Background Blur option. The Photos app will be able to find the background in the photo automatically. With this feature, users will be able to highlight the subject and blur out the background with a single click. Moreover, users can also customise the effect by adjusting the Blur Intensity or can use the Brush Tool to modify the areas that are being blurred.
Windows Photos app: Search for photos in OneDrive
With this feature, users can quickly find photos stored in OneDrive (both home or personal) accounts. Users can search for the photos based on their content. To use the new content search feature, users need to ensure that they’re signed into their respective Microsoft accounts.
Users can find a search bar at the top of the OneDrive Personal section. Here, they’ve to enter what they’re looking for, for example, car, beach, birthday, vacation and the feature will show them the desired results.

However, it is important to note that the photo search feature may not work instantly for users who are new to OneDrive or have not previously used photo search on OneDrive. This may happen as OneDrive takes some time to process the photos. New OneDrive users who are unable to see any search results need to check back in a few hours and try again.
Apart from this, users can also find photos based on the location they were taken. This feature is available to all photos including those stored in file systems, OneDrive, and iCloud.
Windows Photos app: Motion Photo support
This feature will be available only on Samsung and Google devices. Just like iPhones, the Motion Photo feature will show the video portion of images on Windows systems.
Microsoft has also improved its up-sampling logic so that images no longer appear pixelated when zooming in by a large factor. The Edit and Create Video options are now easily accessible at the top of the gallery view. The Windows Photos app also required a restart to start showing iCloud photos. This issue has been fixed with the latest update. Once photo syncing is enabled for iCloud’s Windows app, users will be able to see photos stored on iCloud.