Google Photos is a very useful application allowing you to explore a number of interesting features ranging from tagging pictures based on geolocation and even editing your photograph when taken.

As good as it is, its free for everyone on Android and iOS an come pre-installed in the former which is a good news but a recent report from the XDA Developers’ site is that Google might be planning to hide some features behind paywall while making the rest free.

The media company was able to get this report based on their research which include digging through the source code of the latest version of the Google Photo’s application and then suggest the search giant might be planning to put some forthcoming features behind a paywall or Google One subscription.

In their report, the XDA Developers noted that the Google Photos version 5.18 includes four string of code which points to this changes.

• “As a Google One member, you get access to extra editing features”
• “Get extraediting features with a Google One membership”
• “Unlock this feature and more with a Google One membership”
• “Unlock more editing features and {storage_amount} of storage with a Google One membership”

With this, we might be able to deduce that Google is on the verge of implementing this feature as an XDA Developers’ reader pointed out that Google has locked the “Color Pop” feature and requires the Google One subscription to access it.

However, in a statement to The Verge, Google said the feature is only paywalled on photos that have no inherent depth information:

In Google Photos, color pop is a feature that continues to be available for anyone to use, at no cost, for photos with depth information (such as portrait mode). As a part of an ongoing roll out that began earlier this year, Google One members can apply the feature to even more photos of people, including those without depth information.

But with the above report, Google isn’t locking the feature but making available on more photos with the update which would require that you pay for it.

Considering the fact that the Google image processing system is second to none, this allow the service to offer one of the best portrait mode on a smartphone camera without requiring your camera hardware to do too much.

Before the color pop work well it’ll usually require depth information allowing it to be available on photos taken via the portrait mode.

One thing to also consider is the fact that Google offering a premium-tier functionality will mean that the service will be much cranked up to the max before it can be put behind paywall in the first place.

With Google Photos being a regular that even professional photographers use on the daily, it’s no surprise that many won’t mind paying for it after all there are some services out there as well that requires you pay despite not being used all the time.