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Picnik
Daily Ink
Stored in: Tools
Posted On: March 28 2007
By: Bryan Partington
Archival Photo
Can an online photo editing application actually be GOOD?
I've seen a lot of online photo editors before, and some were very impressive. That said, I wouldn't go out of my way to suggest them to people.
Picnik is an exception. It makes a very serious effort to provide a superior photo editing experience, and does so in a delightfully whimsical way. Loading messages like "laying out the blanket" always get me - but beyond the cute, subtle humour lies a wide assortment of filters and effects the you can apply to your photos. Some of the filters are even .. you know .. actually USEFUL!
Obviously this isn't going to be replacing Photoshop any time soon, although with recent pricing increases for CS3, some would hope that in time it might. This is more geared toward the amateur snap-shooter who wants to do simple processing in a fast and easy way, no downloads required.
The best part is that it is fully integrated with the flickr API, meaning that you can edit photos you upload to flickr very easily, saving your changes to flickr as you go.
Picnik has some severe limitations, of course. There are no 'brush' tools for selectively dodging and burning areas of a photo. There is no selection tool or magic wand to enable flexible adjustments to portions of photos. Cloning or copy/pasting is totally out of the question. Still, the interface and tools are advanced and easy enough to use that it makes me wonder if such tools my be available in these kinds of applications in the future.
Grounded in the present, picnik might just be the quickest, easiest and cheapest way to remove red-eye from and exposure correct your flickr photos. It even has some more advanced features like like manual "levels" correction, which is a great way to correct for under or overexposure.
Picnik is certainly worth taking for a spin... and who knows, if you're not a hardcore photoshopper it might even become your everyday photo editing app!
9 comments on this Ink
On March 28, 2007, Brenda Anderson said ...
I discovered picnik a few weeks ago, and I love using it to make "variations" on older photos that I've previously uploaded to Flickr... "Wonder what that would look like in sepia?" methinks. Perfect tool for that sort of thing.
On March 29, 2007, john andrews said ...
I have been using Picnik for a while now and it does what it does very well, my only fear is with the recent additions of the "premium" services that means there is a cost coming to picnik and I just hope they keep costs low.If they start putting restrictions on what the early adopters had had for free then that might scare me away. At home I have software so i don't really need it any more, but at work we do not have any photo software and so it works great for the wonderful picture here and there.
On March 29, 2007, Linda Blakely said ...
I tried it out with one of the demo photos and thought..."oh this is awesome!"
Then I clicked on the Flickr button to search tags and pulled up one of my photos. One of my photos that had a copyright symbol on it. So this means that anyone can edit one of my photos, or anyone's, and save it and claim it as one of their own. Then I though..."this isn't so awesome after all."
On March 29, 2007, Bryan Partington said ...
i think that picnik should limit flickr searches to creative commons photos or AT LEAST have CC toggled on by default.
On March 29, 2007, Linda Blakely said ...
Agreed. I emailed them with some feedback :-)
On March 30, 2007, Bryan Partington said ...
do get back to us with their response.
i'll probably write up an ink about how they handle this.
On April 02, 2007, Linda Blakely said ...
So far I have not had a response from them.
On April 02, 2007, Bryan Partington said ...
linda, a little bird told me that picnik will probably change that functionality.
On April 03, 2007, Linda Blakely said ...
I just read my email and saw a response to that effect. I'll Flickr mail you the response I got.
Otherwise, in Tools:
- Previously: Photo-Shopping
Utata Ink is a daily publication edited by Bryan Partington (striatic). Photos used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and obtained via the flickr API unless otherwise noted. To make a contribution to Ink, please visit Ink Me.
