Lightroom vs Snapseed for Samsung Photos (2026)

Snapseed offers all features for free, while Adobe has locked away some of Lightroom’s features (raw image editing and masking) behind its Premium subscription plan. For most Galaxy owners, that reason alone settles it, as both are excellent photo editors with solid Android support. This comparison was made using information from Adobe’s and Google’s own documentation as well as their respective Google Play Store pages, last checked 4 November 2026.

Lightroom and Snapseed side by side

RAW and Expert RAW files

According to Samsung’s support page, Expert RAW also creates a 16-bit linear DNG image when you shoot a picture. These files contain the most information and give you the most latitude when editing. This is also where Lightroom and Snapseed differ the most.

Lightroom works with DNG files, which are Adobe’s raw format, but according to Adobe’s FAQ page, editing raw files is considered a Premium feature in Lightroom. This means you’ll need either Lightroom Premium or Creative Cloud to import and edit raw files in Lightroom Mobile. Snapseed’s RAW Develop tool is free and according to Google can open “some” RAW files, so we suggest testing it with one of your DNG files to see if it works for you. Our Expert RAW guide and RAW vs JPEG comparison explain when the bigger file is worth it.

Selective edits and masking

If you have a photo of someone whose face is in the shade, you can use Snapseed’s Selective tool to just brighten that part of the image, or its Brush tool to apply more general changes to selected areas with just a few taps. In version 4.0 (which began rolling out to Android in stages starting in May 2026), Snapseed even added one-tap masking to isolate the main subject of a photo or the background. And it’s all free.

Some of Lightroom’s features, such as its masking tools, are available only with a Premium subscription, according to Adobe’s upgrade page. Even without Premium, though, Lightroom offers useful Quick Actions that recommend changes you might want to make to a photo, as well as presets. If you often want to make different changes to the sky and subject of a photo, though, Lightroom Premium is worth the extra cost.

Healing and object removal

Snapseed’s Healing tool is handy for ridding your photos of small distractions like a sign or a stray piece of litter, and it’s totally free. Meanwhile, both Lightroom’s healing brush and AI-based Generative Remove can be used for similar purposes, but they’re Premium tools, Adobe notes. Before either of these apps, Samsung's Gallery app already comes with an editor of its own, and our Object Eraser and Photo Assist guide gives you a quick overview of its editing tools. Photoshop Express, also free from Adobe, can knock out blemishes and objects in a hurry, and our Photoshop Express guide covers it.

Presets and batch editing

If you want consistency across your feed, Lightroom is the better option. It’s centred around presets, both your own and those offered up by the Lightroom community, and Lightroom Premium also offers batch editing so you can apply a particular look to a whole slew of photos at once.

Snapseed has narrowed the gap with version 4.0. It has added batch editing (as noted in its Google Play listing, available to all for free), and can use .xmp presets and 3D LUTs so you can recreate looks from elsewhere. Its film simulations can get you pretty far into vintage territory.

Price and sync

There are no ads in Snapseed, and no charge for using it. Google hasn’t released a desktop version. Our Snapseed for PC guide covers the workarounds if you want to edit on a computer.

Adobe offers Lightroom Premium within the app with a monthly or annual subscription, but according to Adobe, if you purchase it on Google Play, it only applies to the mobile app. They also offer it on the Galaxy Store as Lightroom for Samsung. If you want to use Lightroom on your desktop and on the web, Adobe recommends their Creative Cloud Pro subscription, which also includes the mobile app.

Prices vary by region, so be sure to double-check the pricing in the app before a free trial period ends. Adobe says you’ll still have access to the free features if you cancel, but that syncing and Premium features will no longer be available.

Which one to use

Lightroom Premium is ideal if you shoot Expert RAW, need to edit a lot of images at once in a similar fashion, or also edit images on your computer. Snapseed is ideal if you mostly edit JPEGs taken with your Galaxy camera, want more fine-tuned control over editing certain parts of an image, and don’t want to pay for a subscription. If you’re using Lightroom, the Lightroom mobile setup guide has information on importing/exporting DNG files with different settings.

You can, of course, use both apps together, using Lightroom for editing Expert RAW images and Snapseed for quickly healing blemishes in JPEGs. While our Snapseed guide examines these utilities in detail, our best Android photo editing apps round-up provides an overview of the different options.