Every year, smartphones get better and better cameras capable of capturing more and more detail. But any good photographer knows that getting the right shot is just part of creating a beautiful image. With many photos, making everything look just right is done with an edit.
While Instagram popularized filters as the main mobile editing tool most people use to improve their pictures, sometimes you may want a little more control. With Snapseed, you gain back a ton of fine-tuned control without having to hop onto your computer.
The free iOS and Android app from Google lets you tune standard features like brightness, contrast and saturation, but also has powerful editing features like a dodge & burn brush, intelligent selective edits and a host of tunable filters.
To edit your image, you don’t have to mess around with sliders or dials. Instead, you’re presented with an almost-full screen view of your image and you just drag your finger left or right to apply the edit. To choose the type of edit you want to make, just swipe up or down. That means you can see all the details in your image without UI element obstructing your view.
Snapseed also has a lot of editing tools that you won’t find in other apps. You can brush on saturation to make certain areas pop with color, intelligently transform the picture (which fills in gaps without zooming the image) and adjust various aspects of Snapseed stellar filters. Snapseed’s edits are non-destructive, meaning you can always go back and edit them, even after making further changes.
If you’re a little confused by all the options Snapseed offers, check out their YouTube page, which is full of helpful tips to combine image editing tools, filters and techniques to get your image looking great.
