Google’s image-editing app is getting a refresh — on September 19 and 20, Google launched version 2.18 of Snapseed, adding more speed, more filters, and an enhanced user interface. The app update comes with one more new feature for iOS users — a perspective correction tool.
The refresh is designed to allow users faster access to their favorite features to edit photos in less time, Google says. Looks, or the platform’s custom digital filters, are now located on the main screen for quicker access to those one-touch corrections. The update also brings 11 new Looks developed by the Snapseed team. Looks also allows users to create their own filters by saving a combination of adjustments. By saving the adjustments into a new Look, users can apply the custom filters to other photos without redoing each specific edit.
The refresh to the user-interface also comes with a new color scheme. With the update, Snapseed switches from a dark theme to a light one, with a gray background placed behind the photos, and white menus.
Along with the enhanced speed and user interface makeover, the iOS version of the app also includes a new tool. The perspective tool allows users to correct skewed lines. For example, wide angle lenses or a low perspective will make the parallel edges of a building appear to turn in toward each other. Google says the new tool has both an automatic correction option, and controls to adjust the skewed lines yourself.
The iOS version launched on the App Store on September 19, while the Android version followed a day later on Google Play.
Snapseed is a popular photo app because of its mix of one-tap and advanced editing tools. Google acquired Snapseed in 2012, later launching an Android version and dropping the $5 price tag to make it a free photo editor. The app saw no updates for two years, however, which had users worried the company wasn’t going to devote much into further enhancements because of that free price tag (which is eventually what happened to the Nik Collection, acquired at the same time). The latest update is the second significant change to come to the app this year, with Google adding a Curves tool in February.
