How to Edit Photos Using Google Drive

A step-by-step guide to editing photos with Google Drive

Last Updated: May 26, 2022

Google Drive can be used to edit photos. It can add a background and special effects, as required. Just choose an image you'd like to edit and follow these simple instructions to create a new picture.

Steps

1
Choose a picture. Take a picture (on a phone ) and send it to yourself via Gmail, so that you can open it up on your computer.
2
Open Google Drive.
- Go to the left of the screen and see a red button that says "Create".
- Under all of the options, find a red colored document folder named "Google Drawings.".
- You should now be opened to an untitled drawing. Give it a name as well.
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3
Start the editing process. Go back to your Gmail account, and open the file you sent to yourself. Leave it open if you want a background. Find backgrounds from Google Images or Tumblr. For the purposes of this tutorial, Google Images is used.
4
Go to Google Images. Type in anything you want; just make sure to type in the word "Tumblr" after it, so that you get some good results. For example: "Pizza background Tumblr", "Galaxy background Tumblr".
5
Make a blue pizza background, for example. Click on the image, then right mouse click.
- Press "Copy image".
- Go back to your Google drawing.
- Right click again and press "Paste". Your image should be on the background.
- To make it fit the whole page, stretch it out (the image enlarges, and will not repeat). Use your mouse to stretch out the blue lines at the sides.
- Go back to the Gmail tab. Right click "Copy image" on the picture you sent to yourself.
- Paste it onto the Google Drawing.
6
Position the image. For example, put a picture in the middle:
- Right click on the image you want to be in the middle.
- Click on "Center on page". You get two choices here: "Horizontal" or "Vertical".
- Click both.
7
Add more details to the picture:
- Go back to Google Images.
- Do the same thing with the background, except put the word "transparent" somewhere in there. For example, "transparent Chicken nuggets Tumblr", "transparent words Tumblr'". Tumblr has a wide range of possibilities, so just type in whatever you're after.
- Paste the images in that you're drawing.
8
Save the image to your phone.
- Go to your Gmail account and click "Compose".
- Download your image to your computer. Send the file to yourself. (Make sure you're signed into Gmail on your phone.)
- Open the file on your phone and press "Download".
9
Done. Now you should have your completed image on your phone.