Snapseed could soon bring a professional camera feature to your phone

Since Google released the Snapseed 4.0 update earlier this year, the app has gotten one useful feature after another. It now supports LUTs for editing RAW photos in beta, and it could soon get an extensive collage-making tool in a future release. Google isn’t done yet, however, and seems to be working on even more features.

The Snapseed camera already includes several options you would expect in a camera app, including pro controls, grid lines, and filters. Now, Google is working on implementing another tool usually reserved for more professional workflows: Focus Peaking. We found evidence of the feature in the latest version of the Snapseed app (v4.1.10.992428248) and managed to enable it with a bit of tinkering.

Once the feature rolls out, you’ll see a new “Focus Peaking” toggle within the camera settings in the Snapseed app. You can turn it on or off as needed, and it will highlight in-focus areas in the viewfinder using the theme color selected for the app.

For the uninitiated, Focus Peaking is a feature commonly found in professional cameras (as well as several smartphone camera apps). It highlights the in-focus details of a subject to help users accurately dial in manual focus before capturing a photo or recording a video. This can be especially useful for shots that require focus to be precisely locked in.

The latest update also continues to improve LUT workflows with support for HaldCLUT. While HaldCLUT support is already available in the current version of the app, the focus peaking feature remains a work in progress. In fact, though we managed to get the toggle to appear with some tinkering, the feature itself did not work at all.

We will likely have to wait a while for Google to finish developing focus peaking for Snapseed and roll it out in an upcoming update.