Every day I encounter some new social network, a new iPhone application, a new Web 2.0 application. For most of them, I take a pass. After all, do we really need yet another social network? How many social networking aggregation tools can one person use? Is there a need for multiple flashlight applications on the iPhone while I still cannot get a decent terminal application? Are we at Web 2.1 yet? Today, I was pleasantly surprised when I found the web application, Picnik.
Picnik is photo editing awesomeness, online, in your browser. It’s the easiest way on the Web to fix underexposed photos, remove red-eye, or apply effects to your photos.
What can I do with Picnik?
Pretty much everything! We’ve got amazing Edit tools that can fix just about anything that could possibly go wrong with a photograph. Lacking photo-editing prowess? A bunch of our editing tools are one-click fixes, including auto- fix, exposure, colors, and red-eye. And the others, like rotate, crop, resize, and sharpening, can be controlled with easy-to-use sliders.
Move over to the Create tab and you’ll see our custom-made Effects (most of which have the ability to be painted into just the areas of your image where you want them), an awesome text tool with dozens of fonts, dozens of shapes, including seasonal shapes for holidays and events, and some super customizable frames. Not to mention the touch up tools and new Advanced Editing tools. First off, Picnik is free to use and does not require a registered account. Huge bonus points for those two things alone. I decided to give it a whirl.
Wow is it easy to use. I tested it on a laptop running Ubuntu 8.10 desktop. The browser I tested it in is Firefox 3.0.3. It was no less impressive on a PowerBook G4 running Mac OS X 10.5.5 with the Safari 3.1.2 web browser.
This is one web application that should be in your bookmarks. Picnik is perfect for quick image correction, resizing, or adding an effect or two no matter where you are. If you’ve got an Internet connection and a web browser, you are set. Head on over and check it out.
[ UPDATE (2017-07-16): Picnik was acquired by Google in 2010 and was shut down on April 19, 2013. Some of their tools were integrated into Google Photos Editor. ]