Snapseed: nine tricks to make the most of it and edit your photos

Snapseed is one of the most complete image editors that can be found on Google Play and the App Store. It is currently being developed by Google, which has done a good job adding a huge number of tools to do everything with photos, to the point where, with the right knowledge, truly spectacular results can be achieved.

For this reason, and taking advantage of the fact that Christmas is here and it's time to take photos everywhere, we are going to show you a few tricks and editing techniques with which to give your snapshots a new look. You only need Snapseed and a few minutes of your time.

Remove unwanted objects

Snapseed allows you to remove unwanted objects from the image using the smudge tool. If you are familiar with Photoshop you will know that it is a tool similar to the clone plug. With this option we can remove pimples, blackheads and other skin imperfections, people who have sneaked into the photo and everything you can think of.

You just have to go to "Tools", select "Stain Remover" and touch the areas you want to correct (a good idea is to zoom in to get more precision). The stain remover will analyze the surroundings of the area you have clicked and apply a change based on them, matching textures and tones. In other words, it will analyze the skin around a blackhead to cover it up without it being noticed.

Correct Perspective

If you have taken a photo of a building and the lines are not quite straight, you can easily correct this using the "Perspective" option in the "Tools" section. With it you can correct vertically or horizontally, rotate the image and scale. You just have to slide your finger to the sides, up or down.

You'll see that when you touch the perspective, some black bands appear in the corners. It is normal, after all you are "overturning" the photo and there will be areas that remain empty. To solve it you can either scale the photo or press the button in the middle (the one with a white square with a little black square) and select "Smart". Snapseed will analyze the scene and add more image in the black areas in a similar way to what it does with the spot remover. If the photo is not very complex you will not even notice the editing.

If you'd rather let Snapseed do the work for you and automatically correct perspective, hit the magic wand button and let it do its thing. I prefer to edit it myself to get the result I'm looking for, but for a quick fix it may be enough.

Double Exposure

Although it may seem complicated, taking a double exposure photo is very simple. It just requires some patience and expertise. Open the main photo (in our case the one with the boat), go to "Tools", select "Double Exposure" and choose the secondary image (the photo of New York).

Frame it, place it as you want and when you have it ready press the button on the right, the one that is like a drop, and raise the opacity to the maximum. Finally, tap the tick to save the edit.

Snapseed will open the main screen and, in it, you will have to select the "Undo" icon, which is on the top right. Choose "View Edits", select "Double Exposure" and click on the brush. You will see the main image appear, the first one you added. You just have to slide your finger over it and delete the areas where you want the secondary image to appear.

Enlarge image

The function to enlarge the image is not to zoom, but to add more content to a photo. Imagine that you have an image to which you want to place text but you do not have enough space. With the "Expand" function, Snapseed analyzes the scene and adds content to the edges to make it bigger.

Simply open "Tools", select "Expand" and pull out the sides of the image. You will see how they are filled with content similar to the one around them. If it's a white wall, Snapseed will "invent" another white wall by analyzing the one around it and copying the texture. It works very well when the images are simple, but if you ask it to enlarge an area with a lot of detail, it may make an error.

Correct Head Posture

Have you had your portrait done and you come out with your head too high? You can fix it no problem. Open "Tools" and select "Head Pose." Snapseed will detect your face and allow you to change your posture by swiping to the sides. It does not serve to modify a person who leaves looking the other way, but it does for a specific correction.

If you slide up or down you can also change the size of the smile, the pupils and the structure of the face to make it a little thinner or rounder. The results are very good and you hardly notice that the image has been edited.

Add sharpening to improve detail

If you want to improve the level of detail in your photos to, for example, highlight the hair of a dog or the lines of a building, the option you have to use is "Details". This has two options and to switch between them you just have to slide up or down.

The first is "Structure" and is used to outline the lines and accentuate the shadows. Turn it up a bit, but never up to 100%, since the result tends to be unnatural, although it will depend on the photo you are editing. Keep in mind that by raising the frame you risk losing some bokeh in portraits.

The second is "Sharpness" and is used to enhance detail. By raising the structure a little bit and the sharpness a little bit, you will be able to slightly highlight the areas that were blurrier before. It's a matter of taste anyway, so try different configurations and choose the one you prefer.

Fix blown backgrounds and shadows

Snapseed has support for RAW and in the same way as Lightroom and Photoshop, it offers you a tool to correct highlights (blown backgrounds) and shadows. Why are we talking about RAW? Doesn't work on a regular JPEG? Yes, but the result is not even close to the same. RAW has much more information than a processed file and therefore offers more editing possibilities.

To do this, open "Tools", select "Enhance Photo" and scroll down to "Highlights" or "Shadows", depending on what you want to fix. You will see that when you slide to the sides Snapseed corrects the areas with highlights or dark areas without altering the rest of the image. In a RAW file you could recover a burnt sky and get the blue or illuminate black areas (in exchange for putting a little noise, yes).

Selectively fix highlights, shadows, and colors

You can do what we have just seen selectively at certain points of the image. To do this, open "Tools", tap on "Selective" and then tap on the area of ​​the photo you want to fix. A dot will appear on it. Swipe with two fingers (like zooming) to change the scope, then swipe up or down to select the parameters you want to change.

You can add as many points as you want by clicking on "+" and it is very useful for making more detailed corrections on complex photos. Obviously it is a process that takes time, but no one said that leaving a perfect photo was fast.

Add text blend with image

To add text to the image and give it the effect that it is behind a person or object, open "Tools", select "Text" and the style you want and write what you want, preferably a word or a couple of words they. Place it where you want and press the tick button to finish editing.

Back on the main screen, tap the "Undo" icon (top right), select "View Edits," choose "Text" and tap the brush icon. Now click on the button on the left (the one that is like a square with a circle) and make sure that the number that appears over the word "Text" is zero.

Finally, paint with your finger the area of ​​the text that you want to erase, that is, the one that is above the subject. That way it will look like the text is hidden behind it. It is interesting that you zoom in to achieve greater precision, especially when erasing the areas attached to the edges.

Download Snapseed | Android | iOS