????我們中的大多數(shù)人都不可能成為攝影大師安塞爾?亞當斯。不過，谷歌（Google）卻打賭其算法能讓我們的照片具備大師風范。

????周三，谷歌宣布對社交服務(wù)Google+進行升級，增加了包括自動美化在內(nèi)的多項照片處理功能。谷歌使用了某種機器學習算法，此前，該算法被應(yīng)用于語音識別和自動翻譯等領(lǐng)域。這項新功能非常強大，可以調(diào)整照片的光照和對比度，還能柔化皮膚、消除低光照片中的噪點以及去除紅眼。

????Google+工程部副總裁戴夫?拜斯布里斯表示，“我們并不想把你的照片變成藝術(shù)品。我們只是讓它變得更漂亮?！?/p>

????很多軟件都有類似的圖片美化功能，例如大名鼎鼎的蘋果（Apple）iPhoto。不過，谷歌表示自家軟件能自動處理用戶上傳至Google+中的所有照片，這倒免去了用戶親自動手。谷歌還聲稱自己的算法超凡脫俗?！拔覀兯龅臇|西在這個世界上只有極少數(shù)人能做到，我們的專業(yè)性無可匹敵。”Google+產(chǎn)品開發(fā)部副總裁布拉德利?霍洛維茨如是表示。評測者和用戶屆時可以驗證下谷歌的王婆賣瓜究竟是否屬實。

????谷歌的照片服務(wù)不光有圖片增強，它還能從用戶上傳的大量照片中自動挑選出最佳作品。所以，你不用再絞盡腦汁地從“亞洲之旅”或“鄉(xiāng)村風光”中挑出20大靚照了。該服務(wù)會自動去除那些模糊或曝光不佳的照片，然后從其余看似相差無幾的照片中挑出它認為最棒的。當然，自動識別地標是必須的，所以你不用擔心雄偉的珠穆朗瑪峰會被錯過。谷歌還能識別出與你關(guān)系密切的人，例如你的孩子或女友，并確保他們出現(xiàn)在最精彩的照片中。你可以根據(jù)自己的需求隨時調(diào)整結(jié)果，聰明的谷歌會在后臺自動學習。

????谷歌還額外奉送了一些功能，并且毫不謙虛的將它們命名為“超棒”（Awesome）。如果軟件察覺到一系列相似的連拍照片，將自動合成動畫片，把每張圖像作為一幀畫面。該軟件還會根據(jù)相鄰的風景圖片自動創(chuàng)建全景圖像。此外，如果你給一群人拍了多張合照，該軟件將把各張照片中的人臉進行混搭，盡量拼湊出一張大家都面帶微笑、看著鏡頭的照片。霍洛維茨說道，“你沖洗底片的暗室現(xiàn)在成了一個數(shù)據(jù)中心?！?/p>

????周三，在于舊金山舉行的谷歌I/O開發(fā)者大會上，谷歌宣布了對Google+進行一系列改進，其中包括將全尺寸照片的免費存儲空間增加兩倍，達到15GB，還包括經(jīng)過改進、具有多欄設(shè)計的新聞流，以及新版視頻群聊產(chǎn)品Hangouts，使人際溝通更加容易。

????Most of us will never be Ansel Adams. But Google is betting that its algorithms can enhance our snapshots with the finesse of a darkroom pro.

????On Wednesday, the company unveiled a set of improvements to the photo capabilities of Google+, its social network, that include the automatic refinishing of images. Using the same kind of machine learning algorithms it developed for speech recognition and automatic translation, Google (GOOG) will tweak your photographs' light distribution and contrast; it will soften skin tones, reduce noise from low-light photos and remove red eye.

????"We are not trying to make art out of your pictures," says Dave Besbris, vice president of engineering at Google+. "We are trying to make them look better."

????While other software packages, notably Apple's (AAPL) iPhoto, have image-enhancing features, Google says its new capabilities will be applied automatically to all photographs uploaded to Google+, removing a lot of tedious work. It also claims its algorithms deliver results that others can't match. "We're on the cusp of taking things that very very few people can do and doing them almost as well as professional," says Bradley Horowitz, a vice president of product development at Google+. Reviewers and users will have to decide whether such claims live up to scrutiny.

????In addition to enhancing images, Google's new photo service will automatically select the best pictures from a mass upload so you don't have to manually find the top 20 pictures from your trip to Asia or your day at the county fair. It removes blurry images and those with poor exposure, and picks what it think is the best among duplicates with slight variations. It can also recognize landmarks, so your sub-par shot of Mt. Everest won't get lost. And it will learn to recognize your affinity for certain people -- say, your children or your girlfriend -- and make sure they end up in the highlighted shots. Of course, you'll be able to adjust the results according to your own preferences, and Google will learn from that.

????Google is throwing in a handful of other goodies that it is immodestly calling Awesome. If its software notices a cluster of similar photos taken in rapid succession, it will create an animation, using each image as a frame. It will automatically create panoramas out of photos of adjacent landscapes. And then there's this: If you take multiple photos of a group of people, it will do its best to compose one where everyone is smiling and looking at the camera, by mixing and matching faces from the different shots. "Your darkroom is now a data center," says Horowitz.

????The improvements to the service, which also include tripling to 15GB the free storage for full-sized photos, is part of a set of changes to Google+ that the company is announcing at its I/O conference for developers in San Francisco on Wednesday. The include a revamped news stream with a multi-column design and a new version of Hangouts, which makes it easier to communicate among people.