As I was poking around the latest Windows 10 Redstone 5 Fast Ring Build, 17741 which was released last Friday to testers, I happened to notice a change to the Microsoft Photos App. Now one does not likely have anything to do with the other but it is the configuration I noticed the difference in the Photos app.

Past versions of the Microsoft Photos app had a single screen UI for editing various aspects of your images such as cropping, filters and other adjustments like contrast, lighting and red eye fixes.

Here is what we currently see in the Photos App:

Photos App Editing UI

All of your image editing options were available in the right hand column in this version of the Photos app with a couple being immediately available to use on this default view.

As you will see in the screenshot gallery below, that column has now been broken out into three separate editing screens with each main function having its own right hand column access to the editing tools.

Photos App Updated Editing UI Screenshot Gallery

With the new breakdown as shown above, when you open an image for editing you land on the crop and rotate editing page. I suspect data showed Microsoft this was the most used feature in image editing and why it is the default. From there you can use the top tabbed options above the image to switch to editing filters and other adjustments.

In addition to these changes, I also noticed a new menu item on the Edit & Create menu drop down labelled Add animated text. This allows you to add moving text in a variety of fonts and motion options to either static pictures or a video.

Currently I am only seeing the new editing screens on a Fast Ring device but the new drop down entry, Add animated text is showing up on Skip Ahead devices as well. None of these changes are present on my production machines even though they are enrolled in Release Preview to test updates to the inbox apps.

If you want to know the Photos App build numbers, here they are, but there is also no rhyme or reason to the build numbers and where I am seeing the new edit screens and drop down menu item.

• Fast Ring – 2018.18061.174100
• Skip Ahead – 2018.18071.14510
• Production in Release Preview for App Updates – 2018.18061.174100

Are you seeing the app updates on your device?