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You many not want to admit it, but you never—never—post a photo to a social network without a little work. It doesn't have to be the full-on treatment, but cropping, exposure fix, maybe a little sharpening is de rigueur before you let the world see even a snapshot. Google gets that. And now it has made such selected enhancements almost as easy as clicking the (auto enhance) magic wand by integrating the famed Snapseed photo editor directly into Google+ for Chrome.
Within Google+ in Chrome, you get the familiar Snapseed image editing modules.
This should come as no surprise. Snapseed, a photo editor created by Nik Software, was long a favorite of mobile snap shooters, and when the company was acquired by Google last year, it was obvious that it had big plans to boost the visibility of this respected product. With the Google+ social network out there as an increasingly popular Facebook rival, it needed some high-powered photographic goodness to go with it.
Now, clicking the Photos edit button gives you an option for the Snapseed interface of four Basic Adjustments and six Creative adjustments. Within Basic Adjustments there's Tune image, Selective Adjust, Details, and Crop & Rotate. Creative Adjustments include Black & White, Center Focus, Drama, Frames, Tilt Shift, Vintage, and —what you've been waiting for—the Retrolux slate of photo filters with their style helpers. Each adjustment has additional sliders, styles, and options to get the right look for your picture.
Within each command are multiple variations you can choose.
Of course, you can still use the Auto Enhance if sharing is just too important to wait for more than a minute. But for most photos, Google+ users will appreciate the better capabilities that some with Snapseed, especially since most photo sharing is (hopefully) well considered, and aimed to please.
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