Snapseed: Google's Photo Editing Protege

posted Mar 4, 2021, by Elizabeth Lau (2021)

I'm always on the lookout for an upgrade. And in the world of photo editing, I'm also always willing to try something new. This week's adventure lay in Snapseed, a photo editing app that's recently been acquired by Google. My overall review is that it works! And that's honestly a good thing because I've tried apps in the past that didn't even really do all the functions of basic photo editing.

First off, the pros. There are a lot of functions you can do with this app, more than in most other apps. The ones I found most interesting were definitely the grunge function, which applies a very interesting and distressed effect to the photo, and the healing function, which removes unwanted objects in the background. There are a lot of things to explore in Snapseed, which by far is its greatest strength. The app is also entirely free, with no ads, and every function is available without payment.

However, I personally believe that there are some big flaws with Snapseed. Though there are a lot of tools, the layout of the app itself can initially be very overwhelming. The design of the sliders, which allows you to change the degree of each edit, isn't the easiest to use and doesn't truly give you a sense of fine tuning the image. The controls are actually kind of hard to explain, but essentially you hold down your finger and slide from side to side to change the effect. The filters that are also available are not as expansive and aren't as versatile.

The app itself is actually very nice. I think that if you got comfortable with its controls and layout, it would become easy to use. For a beginner however, it might be easier to become more comfortable using other apps, such as the editing presets within your own device or even vsco, which has an efficient layout, and then transition to Snapseed. I think that since it's been acquired by Google, we might soon see it being implemented into the Google pantheon of apps, which would be very exciting since they do not currently have a photo editing application within their realm. The real drawback are the controls and how difficult they are to use. There aren't a ton of tutorials on the app itself that teach you how to use it well, but Google themselves actually has some tutorials on their support page (this tutorial is great too). With time, the app will probably do better and I'm excited to see where it goes, especially now that it has Google backing them!

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