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Yesterday, I found out that Snapseed has been released for the Mac. Get it here: Snapseed in the Mac App Store. It’s $19.99, which might be a little off putting for those used to spending a buck for an app or those who like to whine about the cost of apps. If you’ve used the iPad or iPhone versions, the tools will be familiar. However, the interface isn’t quite as awesome as the iOS version of the app. Still, you can get stunning results very quickly. Snapseed will open large RAW files, so shots taken with an SLR are easily pulled in for editing. I wished it saved out TIFF and integrated with Lightroom a little better. While you can set Snapseed to be an external editor, once you save your work, it doesn’t automatically put the edited image into the Lightroom library.

I think the target for this app is people who use iPhoto as their main photo app, so I can understand why it doesn’t integrate with other apps. I’ll try to show some restraint in how I use it on my photos in the coming days, but I love how quickly I can get to the image I want. Mostly it’s about blurs and textures.

The makers of Snapseed, Nik Software, have a set of videos showing the app and giving some great pointers. You can see them here.

I’m pretty stoked about this development in the landscape of apps that do photo destruction. Great way to end a week.