Stilts

Google+ creates GIFs Automagically!

This is pretty awesome and happened upon this feature by accident when I was uploading my pictures to Picasa (I didn't want the pictures to reside solely on my hard drive in case it craps out like my last computer).  So just wanted to auto upload them to the internet so they could reside on Google servers as a backup.  Downloaded the Picasa program but this just uploads them to Google+ photos directly (so I assume they are going to sunset picasa and just have Google+ as the photos app, wonder how that is going to work?)

Going through the photos after they have been uploaded you'll see a little icon in the top right if your photo has been automatically awesomed!

 

That's actually what this feature is called, "auto awesome".  In this case a series of at least 5 photos in succession will be stitched together to create an animation.  Here are some more auto awesome features that I want to test out:

  

HDR - Uploading three similar images at different exposures--low, medium, and high exposure--will create an HDR image for you through Auto Awesome.  

Smile - If you've taken a few group photos, Auto Awesome will choose the best shots of each person in your image and merge them into one great looking photo.

Pano - If you've taken a series of photos with overlapping landscape views, Auto Awesome will stitch these photos together into a panoramic image.

Mix - If you've taken a series of portraits sharing similar background elements, Auto Awesome will compile these photos together into a photobooth style grid. Mix is meant to showcase portrait photos taken with similar backgrounds in time, so it works best when there are close-ups of faces.