Editing Digital Images

I gave Picnik a try and it's a lot of fun. This image editor is really easy to use, you can be editing a photo in seconds without having to familiarize yourself with any kind of special software. It would be great to use with students in the classroom because you really don't need to spend any time explaining to them how to use it.

The interface is user-friendly and attractive, and you don't even need to register to use it (but registering allows you to save your photos on the site so you can retrieve them again later). You can upload photos from wherever you have them stored be that your computer, Picasa, Flick or any other web image hosting service.

There is an Edit tab for basic editing (i.e. cropping, changing color, brightness, etc) and a Create tab for fun features like adding text, frames and effects such as turning a photo into a pencil sketch or a vintage-looking print. Below are the examples of some photographs from my collection that I edited. I used the text, cropping and increased saturation tools for the first; for the second I used the neon effect; on the third I cropped, added a Polaroid frame, a sticker and a doodle. (Click on photos to see larger images).

















Once you are done editing, you can save the photos on your computer or any of the web image hosting services. You can also share them via Twitter, Flickr, Facebook...

One downside I found was only being able to upload and work with 5 pictures at a time (if you want more you have to upgrade to a premium account which is cheap but not free). I think the editing features would be too basic for anyone who is comfortable with a program like Photoshop, or an art student who needs to do more with the pictures. Pixlr is much more similar to these advanced image editors, you need to know how to use things like layers and filters, it would be difficult to figure out how to use it without watching a tutorial. Pixlr does include an "express photo editor" which is very easy to use and has similar functions than Picnik, but more limited in what it can do. The great thing about Pixlr is that like Picnik, you don't need to sign up to use it, you just jump right in.