Snapseed features creep into Google+ for Android app

The image editing section of the Google+ app for Android now includes some filters and editing options from the Snapseed editing app.

Google has launched an update for its Google+ for Android app, and that's good news for all mobile photographers with Android devices. Most of the new features are imaging-related and make Google+ a more powerful image editing, storing and sharing platform. Vic Gundotra, VP Engineering at Google, shared some detail about the update on his Google+ profile:

Non-destructive photo editing across devices

Starting today you can start your edits on one device, and continue (or start over) on another. This means you can backup full-resolution photos from your desktop, edit them in seconds on your phone, then add some finishing touches from your tablet. (And you can revert to your originals at any time!) The technical term for this experience is non-destructive editing in the cloud, and we think you'll really enjoy it.

Brand new filters and creative tools

Now when you edit your photos, you’ll have a powerful set of tools (like crop and rotate), 1-touch filters, and Snapseed-inspired enhancements (like Drama, Retrolux, and HDR Scape). Mix and match to make your photos look their absolute best.

A single view of all your photos

The new ‘All’ view displays your entire photo library — whether it’s on your current device, or backed up in the cloud. If your library is really large (> 10s of thousands of photos), the app won’t show all your photos initially. But stay tuned, because we’re supporting larger and larger libraries over the next few weeks.

An easy way to browse your photos by date

In addition to search, there’s now another way to find your photos fast. Just swipe through your photos in the ‘All’ view, and look for the scroll bar on the right. Dragging the scroll bar up or down will quickly move you forwards or backwards in time.

It's good to see Google integrate more Snapseed functionality into Google+, after having acquired Nik Software, the German makers of Snapseed, in 2012. Snapseed is still one of the most powerful mobile editing apps out there. Combining some its features with the new non-destructive editing and the Dropbox-style automated image upload that has been a part of the Google+ app for some time could turn the Google+ app into a one-stop shop for mobile photographers (at least for those who share their images on Google+).

Under the All tab you can see all your images, whether in the cloud or on one of your devices, consolidated in one image stream.

We hope the new features will come to the iOS Google+ app sometime soon, too, but for now the upgrade is gradually rolling out to Android users. It hasn't arrived on my phone yet, so I have not yet had a chance to test it but let us know what you think in the comments If you've received the update on your Android device already.