u/Giles-O

Big thanks to everyone who's jumped into the 4.0 release and sent over feedback and bug reports.

We’re moving as fast as possible to squash these bugs and sort through your notes. We wanted to get this update out to you quickly since it clears up a lot of the major issues, even if it doesn't catch everything yet. We're already working on the rest. Please keep the reports coming, either here or through the in-app feedback tool.

Here’s what’s in 4.0.1 on Android:

New features / capabilities 

• Added Camera shortcut (long-press on the icon to trigger)
• Added Camera capture via volume buttons

Fixes 

• Fixed a bunch of crashes / issues in tools (Color, Portrait, Frames, Grunge, Retrolux, etc.)
• Fixed some issues with Camera that caused the app to freeze
• Camera Pro mode should always have access to Flash and Lens selection

A note on camera lens availability:

A number of you have reported certain lenses (mostly ultra-wide and zoom lenses) aren’t showing up as options on your device. 

Upon further investigation, it seems like certain manufacturers limit what cameras 3Ps can access. On these devices, Snapseed doesn't have an easy way to access the other lenses without a significant investment that would fix your specific device. So, for the time being we won’t be able to support the additional lenses on these devices. 

On iOS, 4.0.1 address a couple crashes and bugs.

Hey all - We know many of you have been eagerly waiting for the Android release on Snapseed. After a few months of late nights and weekends, we’re finally ready to show you what we’ve been working on! But first, wanted to do a quick shout out to all the Beta testers on here that volunteered to help test the app and make it more stable – thank you!

The Android and iOS app will be updated to version 4.0 starting now. It may take a few days for you to see the update.

Our goal for Snapseed 4.0 was to make the app easier to use while also adding more powerful capabilities. As you give it a spin, please let us know what you think. There may still be a few rough edges, but we hope that you like the direction we’re pushing on. As I hope folks who have been here over the last few months can attest, we’re listening and committed to make Snapseed better - so if there are bugs, issues, etc please let us know! 

What’s coming to Android:

• Improved editing flows
  • A gallery, which in addition to letting you see all your edits, unlocks multi-image import and batch edits
  • Editing a batch of photos (select a photo from the grid, copy the style, and paste on other photos)
  • Pinning your favorite tools as you want so you can access them faster
  • Non-destructive editing (being able to re-edit a photo while preserving the edit stack)
  • A revamped toolbox that helps you discover new types of tools easier
  • Streamlined interface within tools that allows you to change parameters and modes with less taps

   

• Snapseed camera
  • Shoot with your saved, custom looks
  • Preserves originals so you can always re-edit in post
  • Free film-inspired looks
  • Pro controls
• Improved effects
  • Quickly adding masks to images for region-based editing in many effects
  • Updated Films options that accurately emulate some of our favorite historical film stocks 
  • Updated Portrait tool with more powerful effects
  • Unified Crop & Rotate into a single tool
• New effects
  • New, film-inspired looks from some of our favorite film stocks
  • Dehaze - adds or removes haze / smog / etc.
  • Color - tunes the hue, saturation, and luminance of specific colors
  • Bloom - makes bright lights bloom into neighboring areas to mimic film
  • Halation - adds red halos around bright lights to mimic film

What’s coming to iOS:
Many of the features above were already available on iOS, but here are the specifics that are coming as part of the 3.20 → 4.0 update

• Improved editing flows
  • Pinning as many of your favorite tools as you want
  • A revamped toolbox that helps you discover new types of tools easier, and should make scanning tools faster while also letting you see your image
  • Streamlined interface that allows you to change parameters and modes with less taps (i.e. you can see carousels and slider at the same time now)
• New effects
  • New, film-inspired looks from some of our favorite film stocks
  • Bloom - makes bright lights bloom into neighboring areas to mimic film
  • Halation - adds red halos around bright lights to mimic film

Changing the app and what’s next:
For all of you on Android, thanks for waiting patiently for the update. That said, I want to acknowledge that this is a really big change to an app that hasn’t changed in quite a while. Consequently, we know that many of you have incredible muscle memory for Snapseed at this point, and we’re asking you to relearn a couple of things, and to some that will be frustrating. We hope you’ll give us a chance, and want you to know:

• We are committed to keeping what makes Snapseed Snapseed, from the interaction paradigms (e.g. swipe-based edits), to the speed and control, to the fact that it’s free, with no ads, etc. I was a Snapseed fan long before I started working on it, and we take carrying on that legacy seriously. 
• Where we’ve made UI changes, they’ve been with the intent to make the app easier (especially for new users) and faster to use. Take loading an image - it feels very different, but for the vast majority of journeys it will be less total taps to get into editing, and it now unlocks multi-import and batch editing.
• We’re listening. If you check our engagement here over the last year, you’ll see that we really want to hear from you all, and that we’ve made changes and fixed things based directly on your input.

 

You won’t have to wait years for the next update :). With this change, our sights are set on continuing to add to the app to make it even more powerful. For example, we are already working on better RAW support for the app - something we know many of you (and me!) want. 

Hope to hear from you on what you like and what you don’t so we can work together on making this app even better!

-Giles & the whole snapseed team