When we mention mobile photography, the first thing that comes up to mind usually is “iPhoneography“.
There’s no denying that iPhones have opened up the door to a new genre of photography and Hipstamatic+Instagram have popularized filters on lifeless bland snapshots that are now directly shared online to hundreds of people.
Since then, many more apps that allow users to edit photos directly on their phone, have surfaced. Some are good and some are gimmicky. But it seemed that Android smartphones, although having cameras as good as the iPhone, were lagging behind. The main reason in my opinion was the lack of powerful editing tools.
Well, the good news is, Snapseed, one of the best editing apps on the app market is now available on Android phones and tablets. For free too!
Snapseed is an app developed by Nik Software, one of the leading companies when it comes to photo-editing, with plugins like Silver Efex Pro or Color Efex 4. This powerful app treads the line between professional and amateur photography. It’s packed with different tools and even has the company’s unique U-point technology that lets you make precise exposure, contrast and color adjustments to various user-defined control points in an image. But it was only available on iOS for $4.99.
Last September, Google announced that they had acquired Nik Software, so it was only a matter of time until an Android version of Snapseed would be released.
And here’s the good news: Snapseed is now available since yesterday on Android phones and tablets. And for free!
I downloaded it on both my Samsung Galaxy S2 and Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 to play around with it and I’m pleased to announce that I haven’t encountered any bugs. Just like on iOS, it works great and is quite fast, especially on the tablet.
The interface is clean and user-friendly. With a vertical swipe, I can choose different options like brightness, contrast or saturation, and by swiping left or right, I can control the intensity.
There are different tools to choose ranging from basic editing tools to grungy filters, frames or even an efficient black and white conversion.
Since it’s now a Google product, it’s tightly integrated with Google+ but photos can also easily be shared to any other application or platform that your already have on Android, unlike the iOS’s closed system.
If you’re serious about editing your photos instead of just applying the same old boring Instagram filters, I definitely recommend installing this app on any device you own. I forgot to to mention that it’s also free on iOS too now.
It’s a fairly big file (25MB) so make sure you have enough space to install it.
Go get it now on Google Play and have fun editing!
Snapseed and the Snapseed logo all belong to Nik Software. © 2012 Nik Software
