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Google’s free photo editing app Snapseed 2.0 gets lens blur, layers, new UI, more

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Snapseed, the excellent free photo editing application, today received its first major update since Google purchased developer Nik Software back in 2012. Version 2.0 arrived in the App Store with a brand new user interface and a huge collection of new features, most notably including spot healing, lens blur effects, perspective transformation, and a non-destructive editing system that can copy edits from one image to another. The app remains universal across iOS devices, and now has a minimalist UI with Material Design influence.

While Apple’s Photos application improved considerably with the release of iOS 8, Snapseed’s unique ability to selectively fix small parts of photos — such as improving the brightness level of one dark face in an otherwise bright image — has kept it relevant as a key iOS photo editing tool for years. Snapseed 2.0 expands upon that feature, letting you apply filters and brushes selectively with a brush tool. You can also go into individual layers and make adjustments to changes that were previously applied during the editing process.

Snapseed 2.0 is available for free from the App Store now. Additional details are after the break…


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How-To: Transfer, edit, and share DSLR or point-and-shoot photos using your iPhone or iPad

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Apple’s iPhones became Flickr’s most popular camera phones in 2008 and most popular cameras overall soon thereafter, but even now, iPhones constitute only 9.6% of the photo-sharing site’s userbase. Despite the iPhone’s undeniable popularity, over 90% of photographers are using other cameras: Canon has a 13.4% share, Nikon 9.3%, Samsung 5.6%, and Sony 4.2%, with tons of other brands following close behind. While the cameras in phones continue to improve every year, they’re not the best tools for photography — they’re just the ones most people carry with them all the time.

If you shoot photos with a DSLR or point-and-shoot camera, you probably aren’t sending images directly to the Internet from the camera itself. You probably come back home, transfer your photos to your computer, then edit and share them with Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom or one of Apple’s three photo management apps — iPhoto, Aperture, or the beta version of Photos.

For around $30, your iPhone or iPad can change the way you shoot, edit, and share photos. Using the right accessories and apps, you can easily publish DSLR-quality photos a minute after snapping them. I’ve been doing this for years, and it works incredibly well; today, it’s actually better than at any time in the past, thanks to recent iPhone and iPad hardware improvements. This new How-To guide will walk you through everything you’ll need to know to use your iPhone or iPad as a photo editing and sharing station, looking at photo transferring accessories, editing software, and sharing options…


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Snapseed for iOS goes free as Google launches Android version

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Google-acquired Snapseed, a popular photo-editing app for iOS, just unveiled an Android version, while its App Store counterpart pushed out an update and went free in celebration of the launch.

Version 1.5 of Snapseed for iOS is now free, rather than $4.99, and it comes with a fresh icon, built-in Google+ sharing, a new Retrolux film-style filter, and an updated Frames filter.

The full change log:

  •  Now free!
  • New icon!
  • Built-in Google+ sharing functionality!
  • New Retrolux filter! Use one of the newly created film styles, combined with a range of different scratches and textures as well as light leaks to create a truly retro look for your photos.
  • Updated Frames filter! Now includes a wide range of new, high quality photographic frames. Colorize the frame edges to match the look of your image or switch to square mode with a single tap.

As for the new Android flavor, its Google Play link isn’t live yet. A few reports suggested that it comes with all the same features and tricks as the iOS iteration, however. TechCrunch got a couple of screenshots, though, as seen below.

This article is cross-posted on 9to5Google.


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iPad App of the Year Snapseed lands on the Mac App Store

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Snapseed for iOS is among the indispensable image editing apps for avid photographers on the go. With a vast selection of professional-grade filters and cool effects, its attractive user interface and editing tools such as Grunge, Vintage and Drama, no wonder Apple named Snapseed the iPad App of the Year 2011 in its annual iTunes Rewind 2011 selection.

The Mac version brings all these features and more on your desktop, featuring tools such as Auto Correct and Selective Adjust for precise editing. You can quickly touch up photographs in low-light conditions and adjust the white balance, saturation and contrast, add various image borders, crop, straighten and rotate your images, apply a bunch of filters and special effects and share your work on Facebook and Flickr.

If you enjoyed FX Photo Studio Pro for Mac (review), this one is a must-have. Snapseed is a $20 download from the Mac App Store. The program supports both Mac OS 10.6.8 and 10.7.2. Nik Software, the company behind Snapseed, also announced it will “soon” port the program to Tegra-powered Android tablets running Ice Cream Sandwich. Surprisingly enough, Nik Software plans to price Snapseed for Android at just $5. The full press release notes are available after the break:

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