What Is Snapseed and How to Edit Photos Using Snapseed

After capturing photos on your phone, you definitely need to edit them before sharing. Both iPhones and Android phones carry basic functions for you to directly edit and optimize your photos. In some cases, when you need some specific editing tools, you will choose to search for a third-party image editor app. Then, you may easily get the Snapseed recommendation. So, what is Snapseed, and is it a good option for your editing needs?

Part 1. What Is Snapseed

Snapseed is a free and popular photo editing app created by Nik Software. It was an iPad app initially released in June 2011. The iPad version of Snapseed was named iPad App of the Year 2011 by Apple. Based on the version, Nik brought the Snapseed app for iPhone. Later, in February 2012, Snapseed had a Windows version. In the same year, Snapseed was acquired by Google, and an Android version was released in December. Moreover, its desktop version was discontinued.

With the constant development of Snapseed by Google, many commonly used editing and adjustment functions are added. Now, it boasts 100 million downloads and has become a go-to app for casual users to edit photos.

Pros and Cons of Snapseed

Snapseed is equipped with a powerful set of tools at no cost. It can be a compelling option for users to directly edit photos on phones and tablets. Thanks to its user-friendly interface, you can easily find the specific functions you need and start editing. Besides common edits, Snapseed collects a vast preset library for you to quickly apply popular edits.

However, Snapseed is specially designed for mobile editing. Even though it allows for editing multiple photos at once, these capabilities are not as extensive as desktop editors. It also lacks complex layering techniques. Compared to some professional software, Snapseed only offers limited adjustment options and output format support.

Part 2. What Is the Snapseed App Used For

Snapseed is a complete photo editing app for iOS and Android devices developed by Google. It allows you to make basic edits, enhance your photos, and apply creative effects as you like. Snapseed lets you freely crop, rotate, and flip your photo, adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, and white balance, apply a variety of filters, add black and white, HDR, and other effects, remove unwanted background noises and objects, add text, adjust specific areas of your photo, and more. You get various tools from Snapseed to edit your JPG and RAW files and improve the look.

Part 3. Where to Download Snapseed

The Snapseed mobile app is available for download on both the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Simply search for Snapseed on your phone to locate it. Then, tap Get and follow the installation instructions to install it. There are also some app-sharing and download platforms that provide different Snapseed versions for you to download, including old Microsoft Windows versions. You should download the Snapchat app from the official or a trusted source.

Part 4. How to Use Snapseed to Edit and Upscale Your Photos

When you want to edit a photo on your phone, open the Snapseed app, add the target image file, and then start the editing with ease. As a new Snapseed user, you will be prompted to back up with Google Photos and allow Snapseed to access your photos. Like other apps, you can set a permit to access all or selected files.

In addition to the captured pictures, you can take a new photo and edit it in Snapseed. Once the image file is loaded, you can apply filters to optimize the overall look. You can also tap Tools to display various commonly used editing options.

Select the specific tools you need and use them to edit your photo. Once editing is finished, you can tap Export and select a desired way to share or save this edited photo. Here you should know that Snapseed now only allows you to export photos in JPG.

Part 5. Best Snapseed Alternative to Upscale Image and Enhance Quality

Picwand AI Image Upscaler can be a good Snapseed alternative for you to easily upscale image resolution, enlarge your photo, and improve quality. This AI-powered photo upscaler supports pictures in all popular formats, such as JPEG, JPG, PNG, TIFF, and more. It provides a straightforward way to automatically optimize the overall look of your photos.

This Snapseed alternative app enables you to enlarge a photo to 2×, 4×, 6×, or 8× without losing quality. Moreover, during the upscaling process, it will analyze the image content, detect the blurry or noisy areas, sharpen or remove them, and customize brightness, saturation, hue, and other factors to output an enhanced picture. As you can see, it also offers tools for watermark removal, image compression, old photo restoration, and more.

Part 6. FAQs of Snapseed Photo Editing

What is Snapseed good for?

As mentioned above, Snapseed is a free photo editor app that carries all commonly used editing functions. It offers various tools for both basic and professional image editing works. Snapseed shares a simple way to edit photos on your mobile phone. It lets you make precise edits to color, brightness, contrast, and other aspects of your pictures. Moreover, it carries a variety of presets for quick edits. Snapseed enables you to easily edit photos, adjust effects, and optimize the final quality.

Is Snapseed really free?

Yes, Snapseed is completely free to download and use. It has no features, format, file size, or other limits that require you to upgrade to a paid version. Also, you won’t see ads while editing photos in the Snapseed app. You can use all its tools on both iOS and Android devices at no cost.

What is the difference between Lightroom and Snapseed?

Snapseed is mainly used for beginners and casual users to edit photos on their phones. It offers basic editing functions and presets for quick edits. Snapchat is now only available for portable iOS and Android devices. On the contrary, Lightroom carries more powerful image editing and management tools that cater to professionals. It can integrate with other Adobe Creative Cloud apps for a smooth workflow. It supports more output formats like JPG, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, WebP, PPM, and EXR. Lightroom gives a 7-day free trial. After that, you are required to upgrade to an expensive paid subscription. It has a desktop version for you to edit images on your computer. Due to its complex interface and various options, you need a steeper learning curve.

Summary

This article gives a Snapseed review to help you know more about the popular photo editing app. Considering that Snapseed is a completely free app, you’d better install it on your phone and try all its functions. If you prefer a quick way to improve the quality and look of your pictures, just turn to the recommended Picwand app.