Editing Photos: Snapseed App Review | 26 Android Apps in April for the #AtoZchallenge

My husband’s a photographer. Way back we when started seriously dating I gave up on photography, the reason was any picture I clicked, he retook and it looked way better. But being with him over the years has taught a lot and I like to believe I’ve absorbed much from him and become a better photographer.

In recent years I’ve seen him create wonders using just a mobile phone, it was what got me back into photography. The mobile phone is easy to use and always handy, it is the perfect camera for me. But what I quickly learned was that the mobile phone has limitations, some of which can’t be overcome but a lot of which can be dealt-with with editing software.

Over the years I’ve tried a couple of apps - the inbuilt ones in phones, Pixlr Express and Snapseed. My App of choice - Snapseed.





 

What the Snapseed App’s supposed to do

 

The Snapseed app is really powerful and allows you to do a lot, from cropping and rotating to selectively fixing and adding filters. A simple mobile photo can be transformed with its tools.

The app gives you an easy way to make your photos better right there on your phone. You can crop the image using standard presets or size it to your liking. You can tilt it horizontally or vertically, and rotate it if you want to change from portrait to landscape.

Tweak it’s brightness and colour saturation, remove shadows and add warmth using the tune tool. And once you are done with that, play with the various filter options to give it a grunge look, a black & white finish or give it a vintage finish.

Each change is a layer on the photo, so it’s easy to undo. Don’t like something, just remove that layer or edit it. And you can go back though all your layers and remove or edit anyone of them without any others changing (the way the picture looks though, will change).





 

How I’m using the Snapseed App

 

I use the Snapseed app for almost all my photos, either to size it right for Instagram, add those little touches, take away some of those nasty shadows [can’t correct excessive light though :( ], and add fun filters.

The app takes some learning but it’s not difficult. You just need to install it, go through the tour and start testing with a photo, any photo. Play with it, try it out, see what each option does and then do what makes you feel good.

Each person sees a photo differently, what I think looks great is definitely not what Che thinks looks great. But I use the app by feel, trying out different options, layering as I go and sometimes going back and editing or even removing a layer. In the end I have a photo I think looks beautiful!





 

My thoughts on the Snapseed App

 

If you scroll back up and look at the images from the beginning, you'll get a snapshot of changes I made and effects I tried on the above photo - from original to finished.

I love the Snapseed app, it’s simple and easy to use, has a huge variety of things I can do, helps me make mundane photos beautiful and I don’t have to be a pro photographer to do that! :D

 

App details and link

 


Stars - ★★★★★
Developer - Google Inc.
Devices - Android, IOS
Installs - 10,000,000 - 50,000,000
Link - Android Store | iTunes Store

 
*** P.S. - If you’d like to see some of Che’s photos, here’s a link to Chenthil's FB page and Chenthil's FB profile where personal work goes up. :)