Snapseed Review

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Snapseed Review

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Snapseed Review

By Chris Nitz on June 29th, 2011
Our Rating:

:: INSPIRING CREATIVITY
iPad Only App - Designed for the iPad

Snapseed brings a standard feature set to the photo editing app on the iPad, but it then goes a bit further by providing tools to get creative.

Developer: Nik Software
Price: $4.99 Version: 1.1.0
App Reviewed on: iPad

iPad Integration Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars 
User Interface Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
 Re-use Value Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Overall Rating: 3.83 out of 5 stars

Nik Software is most notable for their work on Photoshop plugins, and how powerful these plugins are in the hands of photographers. Not content with helping picture makers with their processing on the computer, Nik has decided to venture into the land of iPad photo editing apps, and now the question is just how well do they stack up in this new arena?

Snapseed is a photo editing app, and not much different from what one might already expect. After all, there is the obligatory adjustments like brightness, crop, saturation, contrast, and even white balance fixes. Even the sharing options include the standard email, print, Facebook, and Flickr exports. These are all features that are already included on several apps that precede Snapseed, and they will continue to be included on new apps coming out down the road.

Where Snapseed excels is in the UI, and how friendly it is for users to quickly make photo edits. Swiping up and down will change the various adjustments, while swiping left and right will increase or decrease the amount of the effect. There is also a compare feature that will display what the image looked like before and after the current changes, so users can determine if they are happy with the final result before tapping apply. The last bit of UI aesthetics comes in a little meter in the center of the bottom of the screen, which quickly gives users a visual of how much of any given effect is getting applied. The UI is by far one of the better, and easier to grasp, solutions in this realm.

The second part of the app is where the creativity is harnessed. Editors can apply several fun and enjoyable effects ranging from simple black and white conversions to grungy textured overlays, and just about everything between. There is a crazy amount of effects included, and users could spend large chunks of time just stylizing their images to their liking.

Snapseed may appear as nothing more than just another photo editing app at first glance, however, the ease of use and the creative features help make this app stand out. The quality of the exported photos is also extremely good. Overall, anyone looking for another way to edit and share photos, need a bit of creative inspiration, or just want another way to enhance their photo production workflow, this is a good app to consider.