Here’s the thing: I used to turn off animations all the time because I thought they were pretty useless. Who wants moving pictures? That’s what videos are for. At least, that’s how I felt until I became a dad — now, moving pictures are a must. The feature has saved so many photos I’ve taken of my very, very crazy daughter that even if I don’t have the shot, she’s probably in the motion picture. Because of this, I make sure that animations are enabled on whatever device I’m using (currently, that’s the excellent Pixel 6a). Below, you’ll find a brief overview of how the feature works and the steps to enable it on some popular smartphones.
How motion pictures work
Animated photos rely on a fairly complex combination of machine learning (ML) and software tricks, but the basic premise involves capturing a short video when people press the shutter button. The thing is, a video is just a stream of images stitched together, and most modern smartphones already capture a bunch of photos when you press the shutter button for things like HDR. That’s a very simple explanation, of course — there’s a lot more to it. Google has an entire blog post about its moving photo technology that does a great job of showing some of the complex ML work that goes on behind the scenes – it’s likely that other manufacturers use similar systems. It’s worth noting that some parts of motion pictures are pretty consistent across devices. Whether you’re using an Apple or Android phone, you should be able to play an animated photo by long-pressing the photo when viewing it in your gallery. Additionally, I’ve noticed that real photography often looks better than motion photography, in part because photography generally takes full advantage of image processing and HDR, while motion photography does not.
How to enable moving photos
iPhone
Apple’s Live Photo feature is very easy to turn on and off right on the camera. Look for the bullseye-like icon in the upper-right corner of the camera — if it’s yellow, Live Photos is on. If it’s white with a line through it, Live Photos is disabled. In the Apple Photos app, look for the “Live” icon in the upper-left corner when viewing an image to see if an image is also a Live Photo.
Google Pixel
Google wrapped the Motion Photo feature into something called “Top Shot” when the Pixel 3 was released. Top Shot adds some extra functionality to Motion Photos, such as automatically suggesting the best image based on everything captured with Motion Photo. This is part of what made moving photos such a lifesaver for me, as I could take a photo of my daughter and then use Top Shot to select the moving frame where she is actually still smiling. To turn on Top Shot in the Google Pixel camera app, tap the settings icon in the upper-left corner, then choose one of three options: off, auto, or on. I usually run on auto as it’s very good at taking moving pictures and running Top Shot when I need it (like when I’m taking a picture of my daughter) and when I don’t (like when I’m taking a picture of a flower). In the Google Photos app, look for a circle icon with a play button at the top of the screen when viewing a photo (usually next to the Cast button). This icon highlights which photos have motion — you can long-press the image or tap the icon to play the motion.
Samsung Galaxy
Similarly, you can enable moving photos on Samsung phones in the camera app. Look for a square icon with a triangle intersecting the right edge — that’s the motion picture icon. Tap to enable or disable animated photos. To view a moving photo, look for the “View Motion Photo” button in the Samsung Gallery app. Image credit: Samsung
