The Photo Video Guy

Full Disclosure : I am not employed by Nik Software. I do not receive any compensation from Nik Software. Nik Software does not have a clue who the heck I am, other than having accepted my money for their products. I'm a known champion of Snapseed on the iPad. It just rocks. So imagine how excited I was to discover that as of January 12, 2012, that the amazing Snapseed is now available on the Mac.

Nik has done a really fine job of taking the gesture oriented iPad app and transposing it to the mouse/trackpad interaction model of the Macintosh. The software runs on OS X 10.6.6 or later and OS X 10.7.2 or later and the app size is about 28mb. You'll need a 64 bit CPU and Core 2 Duo or greater capability. Oh yeah, you'll also need $19.99 at the Mac App Store.

For those who have suffered without Snapseed, here's a short summary of what it brings to you.

Basic services include cropping, rotation, straightening and the ability to quickly select standard aspect ratios. You can also correct white balance, saturation, contrast and overall ambience. For those who have used Nik's most awesome plugins, Snapseed also features Nik's powerful control points so you can exercise highly selective control over what sections of your image get edited.

Once you've done the basics, you'll want to look at some of the extra options. None of these capabilities are trivial and you really want to get in there and play around, but for the short list you have Black&White, Vintage Film and Drama. Want that grunge look? Try out the Grunge functions. Have some buildings falling over? Try the Tilt and Shift (SO AMAZING BECAUSE IT'S SO SIMPLE) and fix them right up.

Want to pull out more detail? Nik has brought their Structure control over from their plugins and of course there is powerfully simple sharpening as well. Like that Bokeh look? Choose centre focus. Want to put a cool frame around your image? Try out Organic Frames.

Once you've finished your work, share your photos via email or on to Facebook or Flickr.

Oh yeah, it works with JPEGs, TIF, and RAW files! And it's under $20

The following images are from Nik's page on the App Store