Microsoft has redesigned its Photos app for Windows 11, overhauling the image editor and viewer, and combining photos and videos from your PC, OneDrive and iCloud into a single space. The new combined gallery experience aims to make it easier to manage and view your photos without switching between apps or devices, while also improving the performance of launching and scrolling through apps in Photos.
To combine your galleries in the Windows 11 Photos app, you’ll need to enable camera backup in the OneDrive mobile app on iOS or Android and follow Apple’s guide to setting up iCloud for Windows. When combined in the Windows 11 Photos app, you can browse by date, organize and share albums, search for specific photos via descriptions or by people in them, and much more. You can browse files online or offline, and Microsoft says photos will be available on your device “even when you’re offline.”
The new photo editor has been “rebuilt from the ground up,” according to Microsoft, launching 25 percent faster and organizing the tools into four categories: Crop, Enhance, Repair and Stylize. The Photos app now also preserves HDR quality during editing processes and allows you to edit and save HEIC and WebP images without altering their original format.
Finally, the viewer benefits from a clearer presentation and improved performance, with 15% faster launch and up to 30% faster opening of HEIC images, according to Microsoft’s announcement. Support for media types has also been extended to SVG files. These new Photos experiences are rolling out today as an update to Windows Insiders on Windows 11, with Microsoft expecting a full launch to all Windows 11 users later this year.
Gn tech
