Pick Picnik!

I have had experience with several extensive photo editing programs (Photoshop, Picasa, etc.) and don’t get me wrong – they are wonderful. However, they offer a lot of different options to edit your pictures and not everyone needs that much flexibility. Not to mention, many photo editing programs have large file sizes and must be installed on your computer. Your photos are then saved on your computer and you have to email it to yourself or transfer it onto a portable USB in order to get the photo to another computer. To alleviate all of this work – I suggest trying Picnik.

Picnik is an excellent online photo editing program that is very user-friendly and you can do all of your work through an online Web-based program. You can work on a photo anywhere, on any computer – without installing an abundant program. Picnik offers two different tool types; Basic and Premium. Picnik guarantees that the basic tools will always remain free which is nice because for simple photo editing you are able to do most of your typical edits for free. Items such as red-eye removal, cropping, black/white or sepia color changes, borders and much more are all free. If you have a need for fancier photo editing options such as night vision, duo-tone, pencil sketch, etc. then you can become a Picnik Premium Feature Stream member for only $24.95 per year.

Choosing what edit you want to make for your picture is very easy with simple tabs along the side of your screen – with small screenshots showing what the edit will do to the picture.

Edits can also easily be undone or canceled. The “Undo” button can go all the way back to the beginning, which helps you from completely destroying your photo. Try doing that in some of the other editing programs out there!

Users can upload/change photos from Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, Photobucket and your hard drive. Once you have completed your editing, you can save the picture to your computer or back to the photo sharing site you got it from. You can also email your edited photos to a friend.

Finally, Picnik is consistently working on new features and they are always open to suggestions. There have been quite a few additions to their site based on user feedback.

There is also a Picnik blog that you can update yourself on their latest releases. No spam from Picnik – NICE! Check out www.picnik.com