According to Android Police, Google Photos removed its perspective correction tool back in July when the app rolled out its updated image editor interface. The company acknowledged the disappearance shortly after users noticed and promised to restore the feature in a future update. Now, after more than three months of waiting, code sleuths at Android Authority have found evidence of the tool’s imminent return in a recent build of the app. The perspective crop icon isn’t visible to everyone yet, but testers managed to activate it by tinkering with the app’s code. When it returns, the tool will appear during cropping or when tapping the image framing shortcut, working exactly as before to straighten distorted angles.
Why this matters
Here’s the thing – perspective correction isn’t some fancy AI feature that most people would never touch. For those of us who regularly use Google Photos for document scanning or architectural photography, this is a basic editing tool that’s been sorely missed. I mean, three months without being able to straighten up a document photo? That’s basically an eternity in tech time.
And honestly, it’s kind of baffling why Google would remove such a fundamental tool in the first place. Did they think nobody used it? Or was it just collateral damage in some broader redesign? Either way, the fact that it’s taken this long to bring back a feature they’d already perfected shows how complicated app development can get.
What’s next
While we don’t have an exact rollout date yet, the evidence suggests it shouldn’t be much longer. The tool is clearly working in the code – Android Authority even posted a video demo showing it functioning exactly as expected. So the hard part appears to be done.
Meanwhile, Google’s working on plenty of flashier AI features for Photos, like the “Ask Photos” experience and meme generation from selfies. But sometimes it’s the basic tools that matter most to daily users. It’s a good reminder that while AI gets all the attention, getting the fundamentals right is what keeps people actually using your app day after day.
