



This very precise way of editing gives you much more control over your adjustments than is available when using the contrast slider in the Tune image tool. In a nutshell, this is done by dragging blue dots, known as nodes, on a line down to decrease and up to increase. You use the Curves tool to adjust hue, brightness, contrast, highlights and shadows in your photos. Image: Jo Bradford Snapseed curves: the basics For more in-depth tips, see my book Smart Phone, Smart Photo Editing, available from all good bookstores. Once you’ve played with curves adjustments a couple of times to familiarise yourself with it, there will be no looking back. Curves adjustments are found in more advanced desktop photo editing apps, and people often find the curve tool intimidating and tend to shy away from it. Let’s begin with curves editing in Snapseed, and then move on to some of the other smart editing features. So with so much to learn, where do you start? Snapseed offers a huge array of tools with almost unlimited potential, and the deeper you dig, the more you discover. You can apply a single effect or many, and save your favourite looks as preset effects you can use again and again. You can use Snapseed on both Android phones and iPhones, and while it is a Google app it works perfectly well alongside Apple Photos – you just launch Snapseed and choose the photo you want to edit from your Library. Better still, Snapseed is free, with no strings. Snapseed is also very straightforward and perfectly designed for touch control. They range from the familiar edits like crop and rotate to more in-depth techniques like curves adjustment. It’s not all about one-click filters and fakery, but a serious photo editor with powerful editing tools and striking creative effects. If you’re investing in one of the best camera phones for photography, you’re exactly the kind of person Snapseed is designed for. These days there are a myriad editing apps for your phone, but while Snapseed (iOS and Android) has been around longer than most, it offers a huge variety of different tools that are as relevant now as they ever were, especially for serious photographers. Expert smartphone photographer Jo Bradford shows how to get the most from it Snapseed is Google’s free mobile photo editing app and it’s remarkably good.
