Review: Snapseed goes 2.0 with a whole new design, new filters and a new way of working

I hadn’t expected an update to Snapseed, one of my very favorite photo editors. But it did an utopia update on my iPhone and I couldn’t wait to dig in to this free and powerful app.

Whoa! Everything is different. The way it starts up, the way filters are applied, and there are enough new features that you can actually get excited about version 2.0.

A bit of history: Snapseed has been around on iOS since 2011. Google purchased the app in 2012 when it took over NIK software.. There have been small updates in the past, but nothing this sweeping.

New Features

Here’s some of the major changes:

• Stacks allowing to to re-edit any image
• Copy edits from one image to another
• 5 new filter, including Lens Blur, Tonal Contrast, and Glamour Glow
• Lens blur adjustable in all directions
• Brush tools to apply effects to sections of an image
• Spot repair for detailed editing, healing and retouching
• Transform for adjusting perspective with fill for empty areas after rotations

So this is a big, solid update. So many things have changed I was interested in the help offered. Every feature has it. You tap a question mark and the animated help begins. What’s even more interesting, the examples are applied to your photo, whichever one is loaded into Snapseed at the time. That’s really effective.

The look of the app is prettier. As before, it works in portrait and landscape mode, as any good editor should. Snapseed has also retained the vertical swipe for different functions, and a side to side swipe for increasing or lessening an effect.

Using Snapseed 2.0

I pulled in some landscape photos from my camera roll, and for the effects the older version had, I could duplicate them. The new effects were all worthwhile, and the spot repair was powerful and quick. It helps to enlarge the photo if you are working in a small area, and it’s easy to go back if you don’t like the result. When you go to save, you can save a copy if you wish.

Photos are saved at the original resolution, a must in any high quality editor. All editing is non-destructive.

Snapseed is my most used iPhone photo editor. It has more options to make adjustments, tune any photo, add an attractive frame, and I especially like its HDR settings called hDRScape. That tool can take a regular or HDR photo and greatly enhance it. Photos run through HDRScape have more of a ‘wow’ factor than any other editing I do. This newest Snapseed also has excellent B&W options, and they are all tunable to get you exactly what you want. The lens blur tools are powerful. You can use your fingers to adjust the size of the blurred area, and you can select ovals are even star shaped masks. Grain can be added, and the tonal adjustments are varied and precise. It would be hard to not find what you want.

Final Thoughts

I was surprised how much of Snapseed was improved. Some may hate the new GUI, but after a few minutes I was completely comfortable. The animated help is nice, but I’d love to see written descriptions of what each tool does.

Snapseed requires iOS 8 or greater. It’s screens are set for the latest iPhone 6 devices. At 5 dollars Snapseed would be a steal. At free get it now if you don’t have it, or check the update out as soon as you can if you had been using the older version.

App Store link: Snapseed – Google, Inc.

So, what do you think of the new Snapseed update? Let us know — good or bad — in the comments below.

– Mel Martin