The Windows 11 Photos app is testing a pair of key AI-powered options, persevering with a shocking and welcome renaissance in Microsoft’s multimedia apps.

Microsoft mentioned Thursday that the Photos app is including background blur, the “portrait mode” that’s develop into widespread smartphones. Even higher, the OneDrive app now has smarter search capabilities for photographs, so that you just’ll have the ability to search by the content material of the image, akin to a seaside scene or “snow.”

We criticized Microsoft earlier this 12 months for the very fact the old Photos app was better than the new one. And in some sense, it’s: in Photos Legacy, you’ll be able to seek for content material, such because the beforehand talked about seaside scenes. Provided that you just’ve related Photos to OneDrive (which you are able to do within the drop-down menu on the left-hand rail) now you can use the common Photos app as a entrance door to OneDrive picture searches.

We ought to level out, too, that in May Microsoft re-introduced Spot Fix to Photos, which lets you spotlight a small space and use AI to filter out any anomalies. (Think specks of mud on a laptop computer.)

Microsoft

Background blur, although, hints at one other function we just lately lobbied for: Paint3D’s Magic Select, which has now been added to Paint. Really, Background Blur and Magic Select carry out the identical job. They establish and separate the foreground topic from the background. Magic Select cuts it away; Background Blur merely applies an AI blur filter to the background.

There’s one downside: the portrait mode/background blur function that Microsoft has proven us earlier than was fairly poor. That got here courtesy of the Surface Duo 2, the dual-screen smartphone that apparently Microsoft has deserted. In our picture of a statue, the Duo utilized the background blur function on solely a part of the scene. We’ll must see if Photos is any higher. If nothing else, Background Blur is adjustable.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Microsoft is offering these new options within the Canary and Dev Channels of Microsoft Photos, so there’s no assure that you just’ll finally see it. There’s a very good probability, although, and it’s nice to see Photos acquire some surprising new enhancements. Can Magic Select be subsequent?