We may use the best cameras and smartphones but if you are going to be posting photos to social media, you may want them bold, and colourful. This requires some photo editing, and we can’t be running to our laptops and PCs to edit every single photo. An alternative exists. It’s called Snapseed and it’s owned a brand you may have already heard of, Google. Snapseed does a lot of things better than the usual photo editing apps we are used to. It’s available for Android, even iPhones and iPads. It’s free, void of ads and it’s quite easy to use. You could also use this tool to even edit photos you wirelessly transfer from a DSLR to your phone. So, go ahead and install it. Let’s see look how easy and quickly you can get some great results using Snapseed.
The first thing we need to do is open the photo. Simply tap on the screen or the Open button. The interface is pretty self-explanatory. The Looks button has some pre-sets like the ones you might see on Instagram and other apps. You simply tap one and you get the results you want.
Snapseed’s uniqueness is not its collection of effects, but the manual controls and that requires some practice to get right. When you do however, you’ll be surprised by the quality of the results. That is done through the second tab, Tools. Tapping it brings up a variety of tools, ranging from detail, to cropping, to brushes, and blur and more. It’s exhaustive and you should take some time later to mess around with them.
For most basic changes, it’s recommended using the ‘Tune Image’ feature first, to access controls ranging from Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Warmth and more. These can be accessed by holding down the screen and swiping vertically. Swiping sideways adjusts the intensity of the effect. The Curves tool can also be used to adjust the brightness and contrast using a visual guide.
Most smartphones cameras don’t give you the desired contrast, so some brightness and contrast tweaks in combination should help fix most imbalances. The Saturation is the next thing to adjust. Don’t go overboard; a change of anywhere between 1 to 15% is more than sufficient usually. You will need to gauge what looks right for the photo you’ve clicked. Photos clicked outdoors might need a tad more saturation with increased contrast, while indoor photos with low lighting may need some lightening. Making major adjustments to the saturation can also affect the contrast of the photo too, so it’s a balancing game. The Warmth tool can be used to make images look more natural, especially those clicked on cloudy days with overemphasized blues and greys. A mild yellowish tinge can make all the difference.
The ‘Detail’ tab is the next feature in our list. The Sharpening tool adds some detail and definition to the edges of objects, making them appear just that little better. Don’t overdo though, or it can look crass. We have all seen over-saturated, over-enhanced images on social media. We’re merely trying to add some detail where it’s lacking.
Practically all our photos are slightly off-balance. They’re usually slanting to one side, and that’s a problem easily fixed by the Rotate tool. Snapseed adds guides to the screen that make it easy to align your photos accurately. Look for a pattern in your photo to align the guides with. This could be the horizon or the edge of a table, or the floor. Move the image slowly till you get it right, then tap the tick mark to accept changes.
The Crop tool comes handy in fitting an existing image into a popular format. Most Instagram photos tend to be a square (1:1 aspect ratio), so Snapseed lets you choose it. If you’re designing a wallpaper for your smartphone, then you can choose one that fits it better.
Snapseed lets you make some edits to fix issues in your photo. It could be smudge, or a blemish you would like to get rid of. There are a couple of tools for this. The Healing feature lets you swipe over the area to make a quick fix. For more stubborn issues, the Brush tool along with the Healing tool can be used to make a few colour corrections to small areas of the photo. This is useful if you see any discoloration or oversaturation patches.
Another similar tool is called Selective that lets you choose multiple spots on the photo, that you can adjust the saturation, brightness, contrast and structure for. Adding spots is as simple as tapping the + button at the bottom of the screen, then using two fingers to draw a region. Each spot is denoted by a circle and you can use a finger to swipe up and down to change the look of that patch.
Another feature worth talking about is the Expand feature which works if you want to extend a small photo in a specific direction. This is useful and works well when you have a somewhat even background, such as the sky, or a wall. If someone is posing against a wall but you need the image to be taller, Snapseed tries to expand the image and it works quite well.
When you’re done with all the image editing, you can export the images to other apps, even Instagram. You can also save them locally to your smartphone’s storage. This is done by tapping the Export button. Snapseed also lets you resize images before saving or exporting them, so the files are of reasonable size. It’s also handy, when you decide to mail a batch of photos to your friends and family. The option to set the compression level and resolution can be found in the Settings option under the right-top menu.
If you’re looking for more tips on Snapseed, there is a large collection that can be accessed from the Tutorials menu on the right top. We have only listed out the very basic features that we feel can make a big improvement, but there are many others that you might find handy. Give them a try. No image editing tool can replace a good smartphone camera though. A quick browse of our smartphone catalogue will reveal many gems. If you want a closer look for your next smartphone, a Reliance Digital store is never too far.
Become an expert at photo editing using Snapseed
