Pixlr is a free flash based online image editor that is simple and easy to use for the beginner and has enough hooks to keep the advanced user entertained.
If you’ve ever used a desktop image editing software, like Gimp or Photoshop, you’d be right at home with Pixlr. While it doesn’t have all the features of Photoshop yet, it is definitely a better alternative to using MS Paint. The website doesn’t even require a signup. To use the editor, click on the appropriately named button, “Jump In”, and well….jump right in!
As an amateur photographer I know how hard it is to get that perfect picture. Countless times, over the years, I’ve ended up with the perfect shot only to have it spoiled by one small detail that if removed, would enhance the photo a great deal.
I’ve not had to remove Uncle Bob (who’s now out of favor with the family), or my ex-girlfriend from any photos, but that may well be because I’ve not had the time, the patience, or the appropriate software that made it easy to do the job.
Even though I’m not much of a photo person, I do manage my photos. Mostly just collecting-grouping-tagging-retouching (using iPhoto), and resizing (using now not free anymore ImageWell) to be able to easily send to my friend or use the image for my blog.
I also have a Flickr account but there was only 3 photos inside it. The reason: I personally thought that online photo management process was too troublesome for the happy-go-lucky-shoot-everything amateur photographer like me.
Then comes JetPhoto Studio, an all-in-one photo tool (available for Mac and Windows). This application is a bit unknown because developed by Chinese programmer. But unknown doesn’t mean bad because this app has tons of good features.
One topic that never ceases to amaze me is the manipulation and editing of images. It’s a fascinating world at which I stare at in awe. But when I open Photoshop to give it what feels like the quadrillionth try, I turn away in disappointment within minutes because I simply don’t have the patience and determination it takes to master a professional image editing program. CorelDraw may be an exception, I’ve actually grown quite used to it.
Here goes another MakeUseOf Poll. This time we are voting on image and photo editing tools.
Since everyone has different needs when it comes to working with photos, the idea behind today’s poll is not to get the best tool but rather see which image editing app is more popular among tech-savvy MakeUseOf users.
As usual, in case you’re aware of any good tools that were not included in the poll then please tell us about them in comments.
Please Vote!
What Image Editing Program Do you Use?
Total Voters: 635
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There is no dearth of online image editing tools and we have already covered some of the most powerful ones and some more free image editing programs. Each of the tools try to distinguish them from the herd by including some eye-popping features and effects and thus try everything to emulate the ultimate software which exists for the purpose - Photoshop.
Have you ever wanted to make it look like someone is speaking in a picture? Doesn’t that sound exciting? (No I am not joking. Why does everyone always think I’m joking?)
Is adding a cartoon like bubble with text in it somewhat outside of your technical grasp? Maybe you don’t like Photoshop and you don’t know what Gimp is?
Then Kyolo is for you. Kyolo lets you add simple speech bubbles to existing images and it is super easy. Just bypass their login and upload a image directly onto their homepage. Browse to it and click upload.
Pictures are visual memories and story tellers. Creating images, enhancing a photo, revealing details and adding effects is like changing the perspective, like telling a story with different words from different angles. The list of tools available is endless.
Here are three very simple ones.
LunaPic
Beware, the interface is pretty ugly and it’s lined with ads. BUT besides supporting basic editing, you can easily add some artsy effects and animations to your images. The gif animations are pretty cool.
While you’re busy editing your images with Photoshop, Gimp, or a photo-manager like Picasa, what kind of image viewer are you using? Most of the time when you are viewing an image you aren’t using an editor, especially bulky ones like those listed above. You’re using a lightweight program that primarily lets you view, zoom, flip, and save. Microsoft pre-installs Windows Picture and Fax Viewer, but like most pre-installed Windows apps, it leaves a lot to be desired.
Google’s Picasa is probably one of the best photo managers available as it makes organizing, managing and sharing photos a lot easier. Its ever growing popularity can be attributed to its simplicity and ease of use. Picasa 2 is currently available as a download for Windows and Linux but a Mac version is expected to be released soon.
Here are some tips for Picasa users to efficiently manage their photo collections:
1. Tag your Photos using Keywords
Select a few photos (Use CTRL + Click), and press CTRL + K to add keywords to your photos. This could help a lot in sorting through and finding a photo later.
A bunch of really cool and dead-simple tools to add a “WOW” factor to your images. We have mentioned most of them already, here I wanted to put the better ones together.
beFunky - This is by far my favorite tool. With beFunky you can take any of your photos and turn it into a cartoon like drawing. You can either convert it into a black and white sketch drawing or into a colorful animated painting.
And that’s not all, it also lets you do the same for videos. Check out the video below.
There really MUST be a Santa Claus after all! Right here at the Holidays, from the “free, actually-USEFUL software downloads” front comes: Ready? (Drumroll, please…)
Your absolutely FR*EE…no strings attached downloads (full licenses…not “trials”) from ‘TechSmith‘ of: Camtasia3 (Reg. price: $299) and SnagIt7 (Reg. price: $29).
What’s the catch? None, really. You will be offered an opportunity to “upgrade” to the newer versions (Camtasia5 and SnagIt8) but it is absolutely not necessary, nor required!. The newer versions are…well…”newer”… but from what I understand, these previous versions still work perfectly well!
Finally my hunt is over. Aibek, the main author of MakeUseOf told me when I first started being a guest writer that there is a “free version for everything”. So I sought out to replace any of the desktop applications that I used with free (and preferably open source) desktop only programs.
I don’t feel ashamed that I had paid for these programs since they did provide useful services to me until recently. Now I know better. Here are the results (please note I tried several other options before deciding on these applications):
(1) Office Software
There are lots of image editing applications out there, some focus on resizing, some on image editing, and others on photo enhancements. Here is a list of online image editors that incorporate most of the above mentioned functionalities in one application. In addition to nice interface and rich choice of image manipulation (and resizing) features some of them also give you an option to:
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