The tighter you zoom in, the smaller the brush and thus more control you get. This is particularly helpful when using a brush, because you can zoom in on the photo to edit small sections. Screenshot by Sarah Mitroff/CNETįinally, Snapseed added pinch-to-zoom controls to all of its editing tools. The circle shows the size of the brush as you zoom in and out. The Brush tool allows you to paint Exposure, Saturation and other effects on your photo. The only one that doesn't is the Frames filter, which simply adds 1 of 23 frames to your photos. These filters are divided into categories (such as Lens Blur, HDR Scape, Grainy Film and Noir) and each offers an incredible level of control over attributes like noise, color and texture. But make no mistake, these aren't the tap-to-apply-style filters that Instagram users might be used to. Other tools include Vignette and Spot Repair, which covers blemishes.Īnd, of course, Snapseed also offers filters. It works better in some photos than others, and it's a really neat effect. The Transform tool adjusts the angle and perspective of the photo and Snapseed fills in any gaps in the background to keep the image square. There's a Crop and Rotate tool, plus tools that adjust the sharpness or let you edit the brightness or contrast in a specific area of the photo. In that menu is the only place you'll find the Auto Adjust tool, which fixes lighting and color issues for you. With all of the intensity scales (1 to 100) and different adjustment combinations, the editing possibilities are almost endless.įor quick edits, Tune Image holds all of the brightness, contrast, saturation and other lighting-adjustment options. Snapseed's range of editing options is impressive, including nine tools and 11 filters, all with extra options in their submenus to fine-tune their effects. The compare button on the top right lets you compare your 'shopped work with the original shot, which is critical since you can easily get lost in Snapseed's sea of adjustment combinations. We love this control scheme, as it adds an enjoyable tactile element to photo editing, and makes it easy to experiment with both subtle and intense edits. Those controls let you make precise edits and see your changes in real time.Ī few of the tools, like Crop and Lens Blur, require extra tapping and pinching, but for the most part, Snapseed lets you enhance your photos using only swipes. From there, you can swipe horizontally to increase or decrease the intensity of the effect. To get started, pick a tool to use, then swipe vertically to pick which specific attribute, like Brightness or Contrast, to work with. The gestures might be a little confusing at first, but once you play around with them, you'll realize how perfectly they lend themselves to Snapseed's tools. Snapseed relies heavily on gestures for controlling the tools and filters.

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