Thing #20: picnik

I always seem to struggle when trying to edit photos, so I thought I would give picnik a try. This is a web-based photo manipulation site that allows you to edit a photo without having to register or have an account. You can upload from your computer, from flickr (and some other social networking sites), from a web sit or from a camera and then also save to these same locations. The site was very straight forward, with step by step instructions in balloons that led you through most tasks. The only frustration in using picnik is that there are many. many things you cannot do without buying a premium subscription, but I was able to crop, frame, resize, and make a simple collage. Things like color correction, red-eye fix and special effects were also available at the free level. I'm looking at this in terms of a way that the public could edit photos without having to download anything onto the public computers or as a tool to use when teaching a class on photo editing for the public. I think it would only work, though, if each person had a flash drive, a Flickr account or Facebook or some other place to download the finished product. All right, well I was going to embed my image from Flickr, but I can't get that to work, so I will end this and try to go the other direction.