Microsoft Photos app update adds new Relight feature and smarter AI search on Windows 11

If you’ve been waiting for Microsoft to do more with its Photos app on Windows 11, that wait’s finally paying off. A new update rolling out across all Insider channels brings fresh features tailor-made for Copilot+ PCs, including a powerful lighting tool, better photo search, and expanded access to AI editing for work accounts.

Relight brings pro-level lighting tricks to your fingertips in Microsoft Photos

The standout feature here is called Relight, and it’s exclusive, for now, to Copilot+ PCs powered by Snapdragon chips. With it, you can place up to three light sources in a photo, tweak their color and brightness, and focus them on one point in the image. It’s like staging a tiny photo shoot after the fact, except without complicated sliders or layered edits.

Also read: Microsoft upgrades Windows 11’s Photos, Paint, and Snipping Tool with AI-powered features

There’s also a set of lighting presets for quick fixes, whether you’re cleaning up a poorly lit shot or adding some drama with more creative styles. AMD and Intel Copilot+ PCs will get the feature in the coming months.

Another major upgrade is semantic photo search. You can now type natural phrases like “kids at the beach” or “snowy hike last winter”, and the Photos app will show you matching results — no more guessing filenames or scrolling through folders.

This smarter search taps into the same AI indexing used across Copilot+ PCs, but it works only on locally saved and indexed files in your Pictures Library (for now).

Also read: Microsoft enhanced the Photos app with a Copilot button

Microsoft is also opening up its Restyle Image and Image Creator tools to commercial users signed in with Entra ID — previously, these were only for personal Microsoft accounts. It’s a quiet but meaningful step toward making AI-powered photo editing feel more integrated in the workplace. To try these features, make sure your Photos app is updated to version 2025.11060.5006.0 or newer.