Google’s Magic Eraser is one of the company’s most impressive (and one of its most advertised) features. Who wouldn’t like the ability to instantly erase unwanted people or objects from any photo? And while the feature was a Pixel exclusive from the beginning, Google is now opening the gates to virtually everyone’s smartphone, so long as you’re okay paying for it.
What is Magic Eraser?
Magic Eraser is one of those features that can sell a smartphone on its own. Launched in 2021, the feature looks for out-of-place people, objects, or other distractions in your photos, and when it thinks it finds something you’d wish weren’t there, it’ll recommend removing it. Tap the recommendation, and that part of the photo is deleted.
Sometimes, though, the system doesn’t catch everything, and you can manually choose what to remove from your photos. When you brush or swipe over those areas, Magic Eraser kicks into action and deletes things accordingly. Not only that, the software also predicts what pixels would be there without the objects in place and smooths over the scene, making it appear as if those objects were never there to begin with. There’s also a “Camouflage” feature, which changes the color of certain objects to make them blend in with the rest of the photo.
How to get Magic Eraser on your smartphone
Previously, Magic Eraser was a Pixel-only feature, which is understandable—it’s something you show your friends as a reason why you bought a Pixel in the first place. That said, Google decided Magic Eraser is ready for everyone: Whether you have a Pixel, Galaxy, OnePlus, or even—gasp—an iPhone, you can now use Magic Eraser on your device…if you pay for it.
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Magic Eraser is now part of Google One, Google’s big subscription service, which means any Google One subscriber can access the feature through Google Photos. To sweeten the deal Google is adding a couple extra features to the mix, including a post-processing HDR effect for videos, the ability to add Styles to individual photos in the collage editor, new collage Styles, and free shipping on any print orders.
Google One’s existing features include additional cloud storage (starting at 100GB), Portrait Light and Portrait Blur editing tools in Google Photos, 10% back on Google Store purchases, and a three-month free trial of YouTube Premium, among other perks. Plans start at $1.99 per month for Basic (100GB), $2.99 for Standard (200GB), and $9.99 for Premium (2TB), the latter of which comes with a VPN and exclusive Google Meet upgrades.
If you simply refuse to pay, that’s okay—Google will offer a free trial for Google One starting in March, so long as you haven’t subscribed to the service in the past. It’s not clear yet how long the trial will be for or when in March it’ll launch, but if you wait a bit, you can try Magic Eraser (and the rest of Google One) for free.
