If you open an image with Google Lens (or select the image in the Google Search app, which seems to result in the same thing) Google does by default an image web search and shows you similar pictures, but it also displays a blue "translate" button on the right, which activates OCR and text selection, and optional translation. Though it doesn't seem possible to avoid it doing the image web search first, which might be problematic for private pictures.

That's a very different flow with a much higher friction compared to simply long pressing the home button in any app.

Yeah. (What would be the equivalent to long pressing the home button when Android gestures are used, and there is no home button?)

Holding down the handle (white line) that you would otherwise pull up to enter the app switcher

Apparently this is disabled for me, or I disabled it in the past.

Nah man, trigger the "circle to search" feature (on my phone I use gestures and I hold down on the bottom center of the screen) and you can draw a line over ANY text to highlight it instantly, even text within an image. Perhaps the best feature I've ever been given during an update.

Circle to Search is not available for all devices. My Fairphone 4 doesn't have it and there are plenty of other devices where it's not allowed by Google yet.

I use it for translation all the time on my Pixel 7a with Gemini