This story was originally published and last updated . 

With Google Photos changing up how it counts against your account’s storage, it makes sense that more of us are taking a closer look at which pics we’ve actually been saving. One space-saving change we first learned about last year involves not storing two copies of the same shot when using portrait mode’s blurred-background bokeh effect — instead your Pixel only keeps the artistically blurred one. If you’re interested, though, there’s still a way to get your original back.

After you’ve taken a portrait picture, look for it in your Google Photos library and hit the edit button — the one in the middle on the bottom. Swipe over to the Adjust tool and select Blur. The slider will sit at 0, so you might think you can’t reduce the blur any further, but if you dial the numbers up a bit and then down to 0 again, you’ll see that the background blur disappears. Hit Done and then Save copy in the bottom right corner. You’ll find the unblurred version in your Google Photos gallery next to the original photo.

Back in the day, it took just three taps.

Compared to older images, that’s a step back — you can see two small thumbnails at the bottom of older saved portrait photos, and you can choose which one you want to be the default one. In light of the new storage changes, this solution might not be a bad idea, though.

Google Camera
Google Camera
Price:
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  • Eduardo & Armando