Snapseed Basics

Cropping is so important. Often an image can go from plain to wow, with a simple crop. Sometimes you might have unwanted parts in the background, or you didn’t zoom in enough. Have a look at this YouTube video that explains how important cropping an image can be.

1. Download the free Snapseed app.

2. Looking through your gallery of photographs on your phone, choose at least 3 to crop (remember you will edit the same 3 photographs for all the lessons). I will be looking to see that you improved the images by cropping them. Save your cropped image to your phone.

3. Create a before and after collage (using pic collage app) of your 3 cropped photographs.

To finish, watch this informative YouTube video which explains how to crop a body shot.

The tune tool is where you are going to do most of your editing for any particular image. It has all the tools you would find in your basic camera editing app, plus other tools which can have a dramatic improvement on your image.

1. Download the free Snapseed app.

2. Practice the 'Tune' tool on the 3 photographs you cropped in lesson 1. I will be looking to see that you improved the image by tuning it. Save your edited image to your phone.

3. Create a before and after collage (using pic collage app) of your 3 edited photographs.

This tool allows you to selectively adjust one part of the photo, while leaving the rest alone.

1. Download the free Snapseed app.

2. Practice using the 'Selective' tool on the 3 photographs you have been editing in lessons 1 and 2. I will be looking to see that you improved the image. Save your edited photographs to your phone.

3. Create a before and after collage (using pic collage app) of your 3 edited photographs.

In this video you will learn how to use the brush tool to really make the photo pop. He also highlights the vignette tool, which is a great tool to use on portraits.

1. Download the free Snapseed app.

2. Practice using the 'Brush' tool on the 3 photographs you have been editing in lessons 1, 2 and 3. I will be looking to see that you improved the photographs. Save your edited photographs to your phone.

3. Create a before and after collage (using pic collage app) of your 3 edited photographs.

In this video you will learn how to sharpen a photograph. Great for portraits. Listen out to how you could use the structure tool too. You may choose to use the structure tool for photographs with a lot of texture and detail.

1. Download the free Snapseed app.

2. Practice using the sharpen and structure tools on your 3 chosen photographs that you have been editing in lessons 1 to 4. I will be looking to see that you improved the photographs. Save your edited photographs to your phone.

3. Create a before and after collage (using pic collage app) of your 3 edited photographs.

Often times your photograph will have an unnatural color (too yellow, too blue, or too green or too pink). This can often happen when taking photographs indoors.

1. take a photograph indoors that has an element of 'white'. For example, you could take a picture of some toys on a plain white piece of paper as a background.

2. In Snapseed, edit the white balance to improve it.

3. Create a before and after collage (using Pic Collage app).

Note: in reality you would improve the white balance of an image BEFORE you do any other editing to it.