Pressure points
You can use a two-finger pinch to adjust the radius around the control point, and then adjust the relevant settings simply by flicking your finger right or left across the screen.
Filter tips
You can add multiple control points and adjust different settings with each one, and I also like the Undo command, which allows you to step back - or redo - multiple recent edits.
Get creative
The app also includes a selection of standard filter effects, such as vintage film, dramatic lighting, and a "grunge" effect that makes it look like someone’s spilt coffee on your photo and then jumped up and down on it a few times for good measure.
However, it’s the ability to use control points to fine tune specific areas within an image that has allowed Snapseed to elbow all the other photo apps off my iPad at the moment. ®
We make our selection of the best iOS smartphone and tablet downloads every Thursday. It you think there's an app we should be considering, please let us know.
'Droid fans, Android App of the Week is published on Tuesday.
More iOS App of the Week Winners |
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 EQu |
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 Filemaker
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 Wolfram
Alpha |
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Snapseed
COMMENTS
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/
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.
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.
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.
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.
