Is Google's Magic Eraser losing its touch?

There's no shortage of AI-powered features on smartphones now, but one of the more impressive early offerings was the Magic Eraser. Google's Magic Eraser was an early glimpse into the power of AI, and a strong advocate for its abilities.

Unfortunately, it seems Magic Eraser is going through something of a new stage of its life, and it's not a good one. Despite huge strides in AI , lots of Google Photos users have noticed that Magic Eraser isn't as good as it used to be (via Android Authority).

Details matter

Magic Eraser is one of those features that's useful as a complement to your life, rather than seeking to disrupt or change it. I imagine you know how it works, given similar tools are now available on most smartphones, but if this concept is new to you, Magic Eraser is a Photoshop editor in your pocket.

Open the tool in Google Photos, and you can remove various elements from your shots. Random people in your landscape shot? Magic Eraser can take them out, replacing them with an often seamless generated background. Later, an upgraded Magic Editor could change colors in your shot, move figures around, and other stuff, but people never really dropped the Eraser label.

It's a very useful tool in the toolbox, so it's extra annoying when it's seemingly stopped working as well as it did. A number of users on the /GooglePixel subreddit have noticed Magic Eraser no longer does as good a job as it once did.

Complaints are many and far-ranging. Some have noticed that erasing small details is no longer anywhere near as effective as it was.

Small hairs and jumper fluff, once easily removed, now leave behind ugly artifacts or smears, making the image look worse than before. One person tried to use Magic Eraser to remove a hair from the side of their face and, amusingly, was given a new earlobe and the hair was still there.

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We're not sure whether Magic Eraser has gotten worse, but it seems many people are convinced it has. One person claims that Google has changed from using on-device computing to cloud-based, and the implementation isn't as good. We have reached out to Google for comment, and will update if they reply.

For the moment, if you're finding Magic Eraser isn't as good as it once was, then you have alternatives open to you. Two options are to use an older version of the Google Photos app, or turn on Airplane Mode to force the app to use on-device processing. Or, you can explore other apps, with TouchRetouch being particularly well recommended by users.