back to article Snapseed

I decided to dip back into photography apps this week, following the news that the iPhone 4 is now the second most popular source of photo uploads on Flickr – just a whisker behind Nikon’s D90 DSLR. Snapseed Snapseed: finger-friendly image manipulation Snapseed is a brand new photo editing app – it's designed specifically …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Marvin the Martian
    Stop

    "Vintage style" horror effects aside,

    If you're going to invest time optimizing your photos, you do it on your desktop with a full-strength proggy (PS, Gimp, whatever) --- not on a small greasy-prints covered pad of whatever persuasion. So what's the point?

    1. TimNevins

      The point is

      It can be done in realtime (Do not have to go home/elsewhere to add effects) and upload to the net.

      If you do not own a computer.

      If you do own a computer but are not au-fait with GIMP

      If you do own a computer but do not own an Editing package like Photoshop.

      1. Marvin the Martian

        Mwah.

        Point-by-point:

        1- as real-time as on your laptop, so that doesn't advance/disadvantage (given that you need net access, most ipads sold are wifi-only).

        2- not owning a computer?! What minority are we now speaking about? There's probably almost more without a TV than without a PC (e.g., me)... The vast vast majority without a PC definitely don't have an ipad. So no, that's just nonsense.

        3- not au-fait with GIMP / Photoshop Elements (free with your scanner or printer or wherever) --- if you understand the simple things this program does, you can do them with the same name in any editing package. You probably have it with iPhoto anyway, which you got free with MacOS, else equivalent on PC. I'm not convinced about this point.

        4- If you don't own Photoshop, you get GIMP for free, so that's not an argument --- this limited thingy costs £3, remember. And if you can search through reviews to find the name of this thing, you find GIMP just as well so visibility is not an argument. So no, I don't accept this point.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      What's the point?

      The point is that you can easily get great results in a really enjoyable, hands-on way, instead of having to fiddle around with stupidly complex and overpriced software on a computer.

  2. Jean-Paul

    Got to agree

    I'm not certain about photo editing on the iPad as such either. Organising, adding meta data etc and synching back to Aperture yes, but editing?

    Saying that the control point technology that is also present in other Nik Software tools is great and makes selective adjustments so easy.

  3. garyi

    Optimised for ipad

    Maybe, shame the onboard camera is so shite

    1. Euchrid

      re: Optimised for ipad

      Tablets don’t have the most ergonomic designs for taking photos - whatever the quality of the camera is, I suspect most people would want to import photos and edit those.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The onboard camera is irrelevant

      This is what the iPad Camera Connection Kit is for.

  4. Euchrid

    re: Mwah

    Okay, I'll bite.

    1- as real-time as on your laptop, so that doesn't advance/disadvantage (given that you need net access, most ipads sold are wifi-only)."

    That's assuming that someone has a laptop - if they've just got a desktop machine, then they can't lug it around. If they do have a laptop, they may not want to take it with them - for example, if some has a costly, well-specced 17" model that they use to earn their daily crust, there are a number of reasons why they may not want to take it on holiday with them.

    No one – certainly not the reviewer of this app – is saying ‘give Photoshop, GIMP etc., the heave-ho, this is all you need.’ The beginning of the review mentioned about the popularity of the iPhone 4 being used to upload to Flickr, so I inferred that Mr Joseph was setting the kind of context of how people might use this app.

    This type of app is a convenient, easy to use way of editing photos – although I’m sure you can do some impressive stuff, if someone wants to do heavy-duty editing, then they would do it on desktop/laptop. On the other hand, if someone was on holiday or backpacking and wanted to send some photos home or upload them to something like Facebook or Flickr, after a bit of tweaking, then this is going to be a good way of doing it.

    Also, very importantly, touchscreens offer an interface that a conventional laptop or desktop. Some people may find being able to touch the screen to edit photos, a more pleasurable and engaging way than using a mouse or trackpad. This is something I think is very easily overlooked about tablet devices – they offer something that is not necessarily better, but different.

  5. err0r

    Easier to use than GIMP/Photoshop

    If you've ever played with Nik Software's plugins before, you'll know that they allow some very powerful effects quite easily. I've no doubt that a Photoshop/GIMP ninja could achieve similar results, but I dare you to do it as quickly and painlessly.

    DPReview recently favourably reviewed this same iPad App if you're interested: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/snapseed/

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Vintage Effect"

    And I thought that those crappy lomo cameras were overpriced, now you need a ~£400 fondle-slab to do the same thing?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Looks like a great app

    Shame it won't run on my iPhone, but I guess a lot of its coolness would be lost on the smaller screen. Yet another great reason to buy an iPad, I suppose.

    Incidentally, the iPhone 4 has now overtaken the D90 as the most popular camera on Flickr.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like