Google adds RAW photo editing to Android Snapseed app

Android owners, rejoice! Google has released an update for the Android version of its Snapseed app that now supports RAW photo editing.

Android first received RAW photo support with Android 5.0 ‘Lollipop’ released almost a year ago to date. However, Google never implemented RAW editing into any of its own apps, leaving users to choose third party apps to actually edit RAW photos on their devices.

That’s no longer the case with Snapseed 2.1, which now offers a new ‘Develop’ tool within the app when you import a DNG RAW file. Like Lightroom and other RAW photo editors, this Develop tool will be able to use all of the data captured from the sensor of the camera used to capture the image to better edit exposure, contrast, white balance, saturation, highlights, shadows and structure (clarity).

To show off the difference between editing a JPEG versus a RAW file, Google shared a number of comparison images:

 

Final image after editing it as a JPEG

 

Final image after editing it as a RAW file

 

RAW image before editing it in Snapseed's new Develop tool

 

RAW image after editing it in Snapseed's new Develop tool

 

RAW image before editing it in Snapseed's new Develop tool

 

RAW image after editing it in Snapseed's new Develop tool

If you already have Snapseed on your Android phone, you should see the update in the Google Play Store. If you’re yet to download it, you can do so for free in the Google Play Store.