Snapseed leans harder into professional editing with color grading and other upcoming features

The Snapseed app for Android saw its biggest update in a couple of years this May, following a long wait behind iOS users. Since then, we’ve found that the Google-run app still has more changes in progress, such as the color grading tool we exclusively reported on in July. This tool is now rolling out to everyone, along with a couple of other inclusions.

Snapseed’s latest version 4.1.6 update now includes the Color Grade tool by default among the list of tools. While the tools menu is set to All by default, Color Grade is also in the Refine submenu. This tool lets users modify a photo’s tones and colors to achieve a specific art style.

As frequent users will tell you, it can often be difficult to find the right editing tool given the sheer number of options available. The Snapseed team is finally addressing this with a dedicated search option in the tools menu to help users find the desired editing tool.

Additionally, this update brings a new loading animation to the photo editing app, replacing the googly eyes with a leaf fan spinner. The Snapseed team confirmed this particular change over the weekend, and as the last image in the gallery above shows, it’s a significant improvement.

The “Looks” section could get an overhaul

While the changes we detailed above are currently available to everyone on the Snapseed app, we have activated an under-development revamp of the current Looks tab. This tab, which appears as the first option at the bottom of the image editing interface, currently offers Saved and Featured options.

But with an upcoming update, Snapseed could update this page to add My Looks, Discover, and Import. My Looks gives users instant access to their existing, recently used, or saved looks/filters. Any items you’ve saved as favorites will also appear here.

Discover lets you choose between various looks, including those from the “Classic” collection. Lastly, the Imported section within the revamped menu will surface all the looks you have imported previously through a link or by using the QR code method.

We can’t say when (or if) the visually overhauled Looks menu will roll out to Snapseed, but with the underlying capabilities already built into the app, we would be surprised if it didn’t. As for the rest of the new additions we touched on above, you can try them out right away in the Snapseed app.