Snapseed is the Photoshop of mobile editing apps. It is a creative and free photo editing tool which comes with a lot of nice features. You can find amazing effects and creative editing tutorials online. There is no other app which compete Snapseed, Lightroom offers variety of features but it need you to pay for them. Snapseed provides high end professional editing and you can have fun editing with your photos without reducing their quality. User Friendly environment of Snapseed makes it easy to use all features. If you want to use Snapseed on your computer than check out my post about Snapseed for PC.
However despite of all the amazing features, Snapseed is missing one major and very simple thing. Yes you guessed it right, you cannot make collages in Snapseed or combine multiple photos. In 2017 update, Snapseed was powered with an amazing feature of “Double Exposure” which was new for mobile editing apps. This feature revolutionized the mobile photo editing game and made Snapseed reach on the top of bar. You can change backgrounds of pictures, add objects to them, combine multiple photos and can even make freestyle collages using “Double Exposure” by Snapseed. It is not like other photo editing apps but you can do it without ruining quality of your pictures.
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Double Exposure Tool:
Snapseed’s Double Exposure tool will give you the same result as professional photographers’ double exposure pictures, you just need to have a little practice as you’re doing it all by fingers and they need to be used professionally on edges and smaller areas.
Follow the mentioned below guide to combine your photos in Snapseed:
- Start by importing the picture in Snapseed, you can do it by sharing from gallery to Snapseed or by opening the app and tapping on + sign and then adding photo.
2. Select the Tools option from the bottom of the screen.
3. Go to Double Exposure from the menu. It is located at the bottom of the list and icon is two overlapping circles.
4. As the icon is tapped and selected, you’ll see a menu like this. Tap on the icon with an image with + sign, located at the bottom left of the screen. It will direct you to gallery; choose the image you want to combine with this one. Selected picture will automatically get overlaid on already present picture.
5. You’ll see different styles of overlapping and combining two pictures; choose the one you want and the one goes well with the idea. You can subtract or add the light or create the overlay using these styles.
6. Along with the styles, there is an option of opacity. Click on the drop icon and slider will open up, move the slider to get the desired amount of opacity. You can view the first image by tapping on the switch icon on the top of the screen.
7. If you slide it to the full, first picture will disappear but there’s no need to worry about it. Click on done and go to main screen.
8. From the top on the main screen, tap on the icon with curved arrow on it. You’ll see a menu. Tap on View Edits option.
9. It will take you to the screen which will show your edits and tools you used. Tap on Double Exposure and select the Brush icon.
10. Now choose the strength of picture that how much transparency you need and move the brush accordingly.
11. Tap on checkmark and you’re done with the Double Exposure picture.
By this, you can edit your photos professionally and can have fun with photos of your friends.
Photo Collage in Snapseed:
As Snapseed doesn’t have any explicit option or feature to make photo collage or have multiple photos in single one so you can combine photos in freestyle collage by using the same double exposure feature. You will need a little expertise and practice to do so because it is not common collage feature where you keep on tapping photos and once you are done, they are added in a template and your collage is done. Here no templates are available; you need to do it like double exposure done in above guide.
- Start by importing the picture in Snapseed as in, you can do it by sharing from gallery to Snapseed or by opening the app and tapping on + sign and then adding photo as did previously for Double Exposure.
- Go to Double Exposure icon from the pop up menu.
- Choose the new image by tapping on image icon with +sign.
- Pinch that picture and reposition it on screen as needed in collage.
- Move its opacity slider to fullest. This will make the background dark and you have now successfully added the first photo in your collage.
- Now you have a kind of canvas for collage where you can add number of photos using the same technique.
7. Keep on adding the pictures you want to, but we would recommend you to use at most 3 pictures, or else you can mess up the collage and extra effort will be needed.
8. Once done with adding photos, re positioning them and adding effects, tap on checkmark and you’re done.
Limitations of Snapseed Double Exposure:
Double exposure by Snapseed is a good tool for combining two three photos and little manipulation of photos but there are some limitations. Firstly, there is no concept of layers in Snapseed, which means you cannot reposition the pictures once you tap on the checkmark. You can only change the opacity of pictures using brush tools.
Also you cannot move any picture to background or foreground by choice. You cannot edit the pictures separately after you positioned them in a collage but you can edit whole collage by Tune image option, whatever adjustment you do will be applied to whole collage. So it helps you being creative but also with some limitations.
My name is Imran Raza. I am founder and editor of appiemania.com. I love to use mobiles, mobile apps specially android apps, android games and different gadgets. Here at AppieMania I will write about android games and apps, mobiles and gadgets and how to use them.
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