Lightroom vs Snapseed: Which One is Better For Your Editing Needs?

Have you tried many photo editing apps and are still trying to decide which one is the best? Don’t worry! I’m here to make your selection easier by providing a debate on two kings in the photography world who are performing wonders. Guess what? I’m going to negotiate about Lightroom vs Snapseed. Both are the best video editing apps, but there is a little difference in perspective of their ease of use and platforms that may cause confusion among users. 

So, I’ll discuss the key differences in their features, which will assist you in selecting anyone without going into complications. As I’ve experience with these tools for more than 10 years, you need to stay with me to make your selection easier. After reading a short and comprehensive debate on Lightroom vs Snapseed in this article, you can easily select the best one for your editing needs. Let’s start:

No doubt the battle in Snapseed vs Adobe Lightroom is like figuring out the comparison between oranges and mangoes because both are giants in their photo editing capability. But as we know, editing requirements vary from person to person, so I’ll discuss on the basis of ease of use and demand of photographers. Let’s explain each feature of both in detail with the perspective of their similarities and differences:

We can’t ignore the value of the interface of any photo editing application because it’s only the interface that forces us like a magnet towards it, and we decide on the basis of it to choose the best one. We should discuss the user interface in the debate of Lightroom vs Snapseed because we can’t get close to a final decision without it.

Snapseed: The user interface of Snapseed is so simple, like eating a piece of cake. After uploading an image on Snapseed, we get three options at the bottom of the screen, including Styles,  Tools, and Export. By pressing on style, pre-defined templates will appear that can easily be applied to pictures, while the Tools option provides all necessary editing tools. After using all the tools, we need to click on the export button to get the final image.

Lightroom: The interface of Lightroom is non-intuitive, but any confusion can be easily rid of by connecting to the customer support of Adobe. After pressing the add picture button and uploading an image, a floating bar will appear at the top, including Selective, Healing, Crop, Auto, Light, etc. The icons to Delete and Share images are available at the top of the Lightroom Mobile App Screen.

Lightroom: Adobe Lightroom, either in the format of the mobile app or the web, has all powerful tools that are suitable for both, casual as well as professional photographers. Along with tools, it offers sliders to adjust the concentration of each filter so you can easily balance the colour, hue, saturation, exposure, brightness, tone, etc. Some of its major editing tools are given below:

Snapseed: Snapseed also offers a wide range of editing tools and numerous brushes. It provides various healing tools and brushes to remove imperfections and unwanted objects from an image. Similar to Lightroom, it allows us to adjust colours, contrast, brightness, and exposures.

To compare the feature of supporting RAW files in the royal battle of Lightroom or snapseed is like comparing the quality of life of Norway and Switzerland. Both apps deal almost equally with RAW images but the process of editing is rather different. But still, if you want to choose the best one from both for RAW editing, then I prefer Lightroom.

Both Lightroom and Snapseed offer a broad spectrum of presets that assist us in completing our editing action very quickly. But the question is, here, will you be fully satisfied with all the ready-made presets for your photos and videos? Don’t worry. There is fluctuation in both tools, as both allow us to make presets fully suitable for our photos and videos.

 Guess how? They provide adjustment options for different colours, hues and saturation within each preset that help us to convert our images into stunning pieces of art. You can get presets related to vintage, portrait, landscape, and many more, and you can further customise them according to your style and vision. The installation process of Lightroom Presets is very easy, while in Snapseed, we don’t need to install presets; they are already available in the Style section in the bottom navigation.

Lightroom: After editing the image, Lightroom allows us to export it in numerous formats, including JPG, PNG, PFM, PPM, TIFF, etc. It’s a great facility for web designers, SEO experts, or bloggers who need to upload images to their blogs in a specific format.

Snapseed: On the contrary, Snapseed allows us to export images only in JPG format, but no worries, it’s not a big drawback because we can convert images into any other format by using numerous online conversion tools like Cloudconvert.

Lightroom: There are two versions of Lightroom: Lightroom Classic & Lightroom CC. Lightroom Classic is the older version that’s only available for PC, while Lightroom CC is the advancement of Lightroom that has been provided for both PCs (For more details, visit Lightroom for PC) and mobile devices. So we can use it on any platform, including Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Android.

Snapseed: On the other hand, Snapseed is only available for mobile devices, so we can use it only on Android, iPhone, and iPad.

Lightroom: Adobe provides support to its customers through its official platforms like website, chat and phone. It has become a brand because of its numerous products in the photography field, especially for Lightroom and Photoshop, so users can access to support if they face any problem while using its different versions on different devices.

Snapseed: It doesn’t provide any official platform for customer support, so users need to rely on YouTube tutorials or forums for assistance regarding any issue.

The interface of Lightroom is more suitable for professional photographers who need to edit images and videos in bulk because of the batch editing process. Moreover, users can buy paid presets to perform wonders in their photography field.

In contrast, Snapseed is more suitable for casual users because its presets and other editing tools are limited. Moreover, it does not offer any web-based version.

Snapseed is totally free, so there is no restriction in its features, while Lightroom is available for free as well as paid. In its free version, limited features are accessible, while we’ve to pay for more standard presets and selective masking. Its starter price is 5$/ month, and for unlocking extra features and tools, we need to pay US$9.99/mo. That’s very costly. It also offers a photography plan (Lightroom + Photoshop) for US$19.99/mo with full integration between Lightroom and Photoshop as well as among different versions of Lightroom like integration among Lightroom Classic and Photoshop on desktop and mobile.

If you’re still in a condition like a passenger of two ships and are feeling hesitation in the selection of the best photo editing app among Lightroom vs Snapseed, then have a bird’s view of their pros and cons.