If there's one thing I'm jealous about on some of the best Android phones, it's the Object Eraser that shipped with the Galaxy S21 series and the Google equivalent, Magic Eraser, that's in the Pixel 6. And now I'm going to be even more jealous because Samsung is making its version of the feature even better and adding it to many more devices.
If you're not already familiar with Object Eraser, it uses very clever processing to erase people and/or things from photographs – bad news for photobombers but brilliant for those times when you've taken a photo and there's one annoying thing spoiling it. The latest version takes everything good about the feature and adds some more cool tools to make it even more useful.
It's a kind of magic (eraser)
As 9to5Google reports (opens in new tab), the feature – which you can get via the Samsung Gallery app – is being updated to add some useful new features. The first enables you to remove unwanted reflections, which is great if you've accidentally captured yourself in someone's sunglasses or captured someone else in a window, and the second enables you to use shadows.
In addition to the new features, there's new hardware support too. Object Eraser is now available for the Galaxy S10, Galaxy S10+, Galaxy S10e, Galaxy A52 and Galaxy Note 10.
As ever with tech firms it's important to temper your enthusiasm with these kinds of features: in my experience they tend to either work absolutely brilliantly or really, really badly, and there's rarely any middle ground. But it's a fun and potentially very handy thing to have, and I wish I had the same option on my iPhone 13.
