I tested Google’s Magic Editor on the Pixel 8 against Samsung’s new Generative Edit feature on the Galaxy S24. Here’s what I found.
If you watched Samsung’s Galaxy S24 launch event or any of its ad spots, you’d be forgiven to think that Samsung is basically copying Google’s Magic Editor for its Generative Edit feature. As a matter of fact, Samsung is using Google’s AI engines to power it, so it must be the same thing, right?
The truth is far from that. Samsung and Google both offer a generative AI-powered photo editor that, on the face of it, looks identical, but differs in many minor and major ways. Both in the editing possibilities at hand and the results you get.
I was curious to see how both of them perform, how they compare, and which one does better with object and person removal, resizing, and any other funky edits I’d want to apply to my photos. Here are the results.Many big and small differences that add up
Both Google’s Magic Editor and Samsung’s Generative Edit, which is part of its larger suite of Galaxy AI features, can be accessed the same way. You open a photo in Google Photos on your Pixel 8 or in the Gallery app on your Galaxy S24 and you tap the Edit button, then you look for the colorful starry icon on the bottom right. And that’s it.
You tap to select a distinct object or person, or you draw around a shape, and the AI will do its best to select it even if you didn’t hit the exact borders. Now you can do all of your fun edits. And this is where I noticed three major differences between these two, plus a few minor ones.
The first difference is in the way these two operate. I open Magic Editor and mark an edit, generate a set of images, and pick between them, then I can undo or do more on the Pixel 8 until I’m satisfied with the result and want to save it. In comparison, Samsung allows multiple edits in one go, but once you hit Generate on the Galaxy S24, that’s it. You can’t undo one step at a time and the result kicks you out of the Generative Edit interface. You can only add more or try again by re-opening the editor.
Samsung’s approach worked well for me when I knew exactly what I wanted to do, but Google’s was better when I was experimenting and seeing what worked. The combination of multiple steps, undo, and multiple results is perfect for messing things up and changing your mind.
Magic Editor and Samsung’s Generative Edit both take almost the same time to turn in a result, but the S24 only makes one image, whereas Google provides me with four options. With Samsung, I have to go back and retry the entire edit to attempt another result; with Google, I can just swipe between the four options and pick the most realistic one.
In everyday use, I noticed that that was a huge advantage for Magic Editor because I could often find an edit that worked better, no matter what I asked it to do.
The final distinction you’ll see in all of the images below is the watermark that Samsung applies on the bottom left of all of its Generative Edit photos. Google doesn’t watermark its images in any visible way, and the only way to tell whether a photo was edited by Magic Editor is to dig deep into its EXIF data — something not many people will do.
I appreciate Samsung taking the lead here and deciding to properly mark photos as manipulated. The internet is full of millions of fake photos; we don’t need to add more to that tally from the comfort of our phones.
Aside from the three points above, Samsung and Google’s generative AI photo editors also differ in the way you select things. Google gives me more control and lets me remove parts of a selection, but Samsung just lumps things together and doesn’t let me select something if it doesn’t have a clear contrasted border with its surroundings.
Samsung also offers alignment guides when I move or resize things, but Google doesn’t.
