That app also surpasses Snapseed in things like removing background objects, and working with image layers. Adobe's Photoshop Touch app, however, exceeds Snapseed in this department, with desktop-Photoshop-like local brushes. You drag one finger in and out while holding the other on the control point to enlarge or shrink the affected area, which is shown by a red overlay. These let you apply brightness, contrast, and saturation to an adjustable circular region of the photo. I was also impressed that many of the adjustments and effects can be applied to specific areas of the image using control points in the app's Selective Adjust and Selective Focus sections.

This even lets you adjust with sliders for strength and 'structure,' providing a powerful way to bring out hidden textures. For Snapseed's sharpening capability, accessible from the Details option, Nik borrows from its pro-level Photoshop plugin, Sharpener Pro 3.0. The app adroitly handles photo-fixing basics such as brightness, contrast, cropping, and straightening. Simple swiping gestures let you adjust contrast, brightness, and color or you can have the program choose those automatically or choose control points in the image. After you open or shoot a photo, you'll see rectangles along the bottom of the screen (or along the side if you're in landscape orientation), which you can swipe through to choose edits, adjustments, and effects. It's simple and clear, yet it packs in a lot of power and in-depth detail. Interface Snapseed for Android's interface is nearly identical to that of the iPad app. Best of all? It's now free (as is its iOS counterpart). Though it doesn't have quite the stunning interface of Apple's iPhoto for iOS and some of the mind-blowing content-aware tricks of Adobe Photoshop Touch, Snapseed remains one of the most powerful image editors available for tablets. Maybe that's not such a huge surprise, considering that Android creator Google purchased Nik Software, the maker of Snapseed, this past September. A year after being designated the iPad App of the year by Apple in 2011, Nik Software's impressive tablet photo editor comes to Android.

Snapseed review