There’s no need to panic, however. While Picnik will be missed, there are some solid alternatives available that are just as free.

Google+ Creative Kit

If you don’t consider the actions of Google to be a mortal sin, you may receive the best results by sticking with the Google family. The company’s Creative Kit is, in essence, a port of Picnik’s functionality into Google+. Users have been able to use this feature for several months, but awareness remains limited. That’s probably because the Creative Kit is easy to miss. To access it, you first need to click on a photo you’ve uploaded in Google+, then click on the rather small Creative Kit button tucked away into the upper left hand corner of the screen.

Most of the basic features of Picnik can be found here, minus the Advanced, Touch-Up and Frames categories. With that said, I’d be shocked if Google does not add in these tools within the next few months. I don’t think the company has anything against free photo editing – they just want people to use these tools through Google+ rather than a separate website.

Speaking of which, you can export all of your Picnik photos over to Google+, making it rather easy to migrate from one to the other.

Aviary (Phoenix or Facebook App)

One of the better free image editing options available on the web is Phoenix, which is part of the Aviary suite of free media editing utilities. Phoenix is not tied into any social network or any other website and it doesn’t require registration. You can load it and start editing within seconds.

The interface itself is more akin to a traditional image editing program like Photoshop, so it could be a little intimidating at first. You also won’t find some of the easy photo filtering features you find with Picnik.

Where you will find those features is the Aviary app on Facebook, which was just launched. Known officially as the Aviary Image Editor, this tool gives you the ability to open photos from your albums and manipulate them with a number of common tools. There are even stickers to add and effects to apply.

Better still, you can connect Picnik to Facebook, so you can edit and save photos now with Picnik but open them later in the Aviary Image Editor if you want to make any changes.

Pixlr

Making the choice for the third alternative in this article was tough. There’s a lot of good options out there such as Fotoflexer and Phixer. However, these simply seem to do the same thing as the Creative Kit and Aviary Image Editor, but offer an inferior interface and inferior social network connectivity.

So instead I direct you to Pixlr, a veteran of the online image editing wars. Pixlr is a lot like Phoenix. It’s a standalone photo editor geared towards advanced users. However, of the two I’d say Pixlr is without a doubt the more robust option. It simply has more features.

Pixlr also offers an easy editor called Pixlr-o-matic, which is available online, via Facebook and as an iOS and Android app. However, it’s focused on adding effects and filters rather than real photo editing.

Although not directly a part of any social network, Pixlr does include the stand social network connectivity, which means you can open and edit photos stored in Facebook and Picasa (among others).

Conclusion

I think that Aviary Image Editor is the leader of the alternatives listed here. Creative Kit is nice, but its integration into Google+ seems a bit Frankenstein. Google has taken a stripped-down version of the Picnik software and stitched it on to their social network. Hopefully they will put more work into the feature.

What alternative will you be using once Picnik goes offline? Let us know in the comments.

Sure, a lot of you are artistic as it is, and were designing their own beautiful websites long before Facebook came around, but for many people, Facebook is their official face on the web, and as such they try to make it as appealing and unique as possible. Some people even go out of their way to design something special, just for that huge central Timeline photo. But what if you’re not a designer? That’s what services like CoverCanvas are for.

CoverCanvas

CoverCanvas is a very simple web app which helps you create some interesting Facebook timeline covers which make your Facebook profile stand out. It uses pre-made designs and your profile pictures from Facebook. It’s basically a Facebook app, and requires authorization and access to your Facebook account, like any other app.

What it doesn’t require is any sort of sign up or setting up process. Simply click on “Get Started” and you’re on your way!

Designing A Cover

After you authorize the app to access your Facebook account, it will automatically pull all your profile pictures to use in creating covers. Unfortunately, you can’t use any of your other photos with the apps, only your profile pictures, so we’ll have to make do with these.

First, you get to choose what kind of cover you want to create. Under Custom Covers, you’ll find Photos And Name, Your Name and Your Photos. With these you can create a cover which includes either some photos and your name, only your name on a unique design or only your photos. For each one of these options, there are numerous different designs to choose from, which you can browse using the top bar.

Like I said, there are lots of designs to choose from here, and you can create covers with all kinds of different feels to them. Here is an example for a Photos and Name cover I created.

This is one of the “photos only” covers I created. There are many different designs here too.

And this is one of the “name only” designs you can create. As you can see, not all of them are that serious.

If you’d like to create something different, and not use your profile pictures, you can choose from the wide array of Static Covers. These are divided into categories such as Art, Love, Food and Drink, Movies, Superheroes and Cars. Most categories are also divided into sub-categories, which helps you zoom in on what you’re really interested in. Here is a food themed cover I created.

You can also create something with a darker feel, if you prefer. The number of options is not huge, but it should definitely appeal to a wide variety of different tastes.

Since most of us have a lot of profile pictures, you may want to see different designs with different pictures. You can’t tell CoverCanvas which photos to use, but you can click on “Remix Photos” again and again, and see the different designs with different photos each time.

When you’re satisfied with a design, click on “Make My Cover”. This will upload your new cover to Facebook and will automatically transfer you to your profile page where you can put the new cover to use.

Placing Your New Facebook Timeline Cover On Your Profile

So now you’ve been redirected to your profile page on Facebook, and you want to use your new cover. How do you do it? If you don’t already have a cover, you’ll see a “Add a Cover” button where the cover goes. If you already have a cover, the button will read “Change Cover”. Click the button, and from the dropdown menu choose “Choose from Photos”.

CoverCanvas will create a special album for you, where it will store all the covers you create, but the most recent covers will be available through Recent Uploads, without having to access any album.

If you can’t find the design you want, click on “View Albums” and choose the CoverCanvas album. You will find your design there.

You can now preview what the new design will look like on your page. Facebook will offer the option to drag the image around, but since the design was made specifically for this area, it’s already in its exact size and there’s nothing to move around. If you like it, click on “Save Changes”.

And there you have it. A unique, personal design for your Timeline profile, that people are just that much more likely to remember.

Note that CoverCanvas, like many other apps, will post a status update for you when you upload a new canvas through the service. The post includes the new canvas (so don’t upload ones you’re not sure you want people to see) and a link to the website. It looks like this.

Bottom Line

All in all, CoverCanvas is a great way to personalize your new Facebook Timeline profile. You can create many different designs, and switch them around whenever you feel like it. That way, you’ll never get bored with your cover, even if you use the same pictures over and over again.

Do you know of some more services which help you create your own customized design for Timeline? Did you create a cool design with CoverCanvas? Share in the comments!

I have two applications that make your pictures on the iPhone truly something awesome to behold. If you need to give your photos a little more dramatic flair, these are the applications for you. Best of all, they are both available free in the iTunes app store, so you will be able to improve your photos, and not open your wallet!

PicYou

PicYou is a great app for giving your photos some cool effects and sharing them on social networks. When you first log in, the application will ask you to create an account or log in with your Facebook account. If you do this, you can share the photos you create quickly and easily.

To create a new photo, simply click on the camera icon on the bottom of the screen. To take your picture, click on the standard “take photo” button at the bottom. If you want to add an effect to a photo you already have, click gallery at the bottom of the screen.

Once you have your photo chosen, you can add all kinds of cool effects to it. The effects will do things like change the colors and hue of the picture and alter the border to give it a personal touch. It definitely goes a long way towards making your photos more unique looking.

You can also customize your profile to give other users more information about you with this application. Click on the Profile tab and you will see all the options available. You can find friends that already use PicYou and invite new ones. From this page, you will be able to link to your Twitter and Facebook accounts, so you can share your pictures with all your friends.

An important part of this app is following and viewing other users’ photos. You can click the popular tab to view the most viewed images. You can also click activity to see a timeline of the images posted and shared by your friends.

Pho.to Lab

This application is not as robust in the social aspect, but much more robust in the types of effects. Whereas PicYou is more about giving your images some artistic flare, Pho.to Lab is all about making your pictures crazy. They have effects such as putting a picture in a Santa Claus costume, on magazine covers and all kinds of other crazy effects.

The application will launch right into the effects selection. Some of them are not available in the free version and must be purchased. However, there are lots in the free version, so you can make a lot of this application without spending a dime (the app is ad-supported).

The effects are divided into categories. There are all kinds to choose from such as monsters, photo filters, cartoons, magazine covers and more. Once you decide on a category, click it to view the effects. It will show you a preview of what the effect will look like. Click one to select it. The app will then ask if you want to use a picture from your gallery or take a new one.

After you choose an image, Pho.to Lab will process it and show it to you. Click the share button at the bottom of that screen to share it to SMS, email, Twitter, Facebook or simply to copy the link to share it manually. You can also click the download button to store it in your device for later access.

This is an awesome application if you want to make some cool and funny photos. Instead of downloading one of the hundreds of applications that alter your images in funny ways, you can download only Pho.to Lab and let it handle everything.

Conclusion

With these two iPhone applications, you will be ready to make some of the best photos. They make adding effects easy, even if you are not technologically advanced. If you cannot be bothered with spending hours laboring in Photoshop, these are the applications for you.

Have you tried these apps? Or do you know of a better one? Post a link to some of your cool photos and apps in the comments!

Image Credit: Shutterstock

This week, we’re giving away 25 free copies of PaintShop Pro X4 worth $2475 in total! Let’s take a quick stroll through some of its features!

Managing Your Photos

The image above is a bit small, but you can still see what the Manage view looks like. It lets you browse your system for photos, and add them to a tray for later editing. The Manage view features a tabbed interface, letting you work with several trays in parallel:

This screenshot also shows the Adjust and Edit tabs at the top of the window.

Adjusting Images

Once you’ve selected the images you want to work with, you can switch to the next step in the workflow by clicking the Adjust tab. Here’s a general view of what it looks like (we’ll be zooming in on the different parts in a moment):

At the bottom of the window you can see the tray, and at the top is the image you’re currently adjusting. You can also drag the try down to reduce its size, or even hide it completely. Now, let’s look at the toolbar:

The top of the toolbar shows a histogram of the current photo, as well as the camera settings in which it was taken. At the bottom are some simple settings you can adjust, as well as a “magic button” for suggesting ideal values. But in the buttons in the middle provide some interesting functionality; specifically, let’s look at the Makeover Tool:

This opens up several other tools, such as the “Toothbrush” tool for brightening teeth, the “Suntan” tool for improving skin tone, and others. Here you really start making changes to your photo, but don’t worry: By default, PaintShop Pro preserves an original copy of your photo (and of course, you can always undo your editing operations while you work):

Once you’re happy with your adjustments, it’s time to move on to the next step:

Editing Images

The third and final tab in the PaintShop Pro workflow is called Edit, and its interface looks like this:

There’s a lot to see here; let me take you on a quick tour of just a couple of its features. First is the awesome Time Machine:

I absolutely love this feature. At the bottom you see a timeline of photographic history, extending from 1839 all the way to 1980. Each thumbnail represents the typical look of photos from that era, and each even comes with a lovely explanation of the look’s history. The preview image updates as you select each look, and you can also control its intensity.

The last feature I will be showing is maybe the most important one: the Learning Center. One of the biggest challenges with most image editors is mastering them. PaintShop’s Learning Center helps you find the functions you need amidst the sea of options. It looks like this:

As you select each item, you don’t get a text document explaining it (although there is very good documentation); instead, you get the tool itself, ready to use.

PaintShop Pro is a huge product, and this isn’t even scratching the surface of what it can do. I hope I’ve managed to whet your appetite – if you have a passion for photography, this is one application you should definitely check out!

We’re giving 25 copies of Corel PaintShop Pro this week! Here’s how you can get your hands on a free copy.

How do I win a copy?

It’s simple, just follow the instructions.

Step 1: Fill in the giveaway form

Please fill in the form with your real name and email address so that we can get in touch if you are chosen as a winner. Click here if you can’t view the form.

The giveaway code required to activate the form is available from our Facebook page.

Step 2: Share!

You’re almost done. Now, all that’s left to do is to share the post. There are 2 options to choose from or you can do both!

This giveaway begins now and ends Friday, December 16th. The winners will be selected at random and informed via email.

Spread the word to your friends and have fun!

Interested in sponsoring a giveaway? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us via email.

Now Google+ users can now look a little better doing whatever with whomever, thanks to a free photo editing suite called Creative Kit. It unexpectedly arrived a few days ago, and brings a range of options that easily makes it among the most powerful web-based photo editing suites available for free. Users can rely on the “auto-fix” feature to enhance photos or dig in and adjust exposure, sharpness and colors manually.

If you’re thinking this sounds a bit like the editing already available through Picasa, then you’re on the right track. Picasa offers the stand-alone Picnik service for photo editing (which is owned by Google), and it appears as if the new Creative Kit shares many interface elements with Picnik.  However, the two tools offer a slightly different selection of effects, and the Google+ suite has kicked off its introduction with Halloween-themed effects and stickers that aren’t found elsewhere.

The Creative Kit can be accessed by opening a photo in Google+ and then navigating to the Edit menu, which is where the new tool hangs out. If you’d like to merely auto-fix your photos, you don’t even have to open the tool, as there’s an option for that available in the edit menu.

Source: Ars Technica

Computers have been doing this for years, but it’s an up-and-coming feature on phones, which are generally limited to a few basic filters. My Thunderbolt’s stock camera app, for example, has only thirteen available. Pixlr-o-matc, however, offers over eighty options.

Better yet, you can mix-and-match. There are three categories (filter, lighting effect, and frame) and one from each can be added to a photo. Effects are implemented as a preview almost instantly, and can then be saved to your phone’s SD card or shared via instant messenger. Source images can be imported to Pixlr-o-matic from your gallery, or you can take a new snapshot with your camera.

Though new for Android, iOS users have had access to the app since August. They apparently like it, as it has already earned 877 user ratings averaging out to four and a half stars. There are similar apps available for free on the Android market, such as FxCamera, but I don’t believe any of them offer as many options.

Pixlr-o-matic is developed by Autodesk, and is compatible with Android phones running version 2.1 and up.

Source: CNET

So what do you use to upload and discover great photos and videos? Use Instagram? Well, if you have an iPhone, sure, but if you’re a Droid, which is slated to surpass iOS in app downloads due to the sheer amount and reach of Android devices, your only option is to pick one of the subpar non-Instagram apps that are out there. Which is the best Instagram alternative?

Well, I’ll save you the trouble right now. It’s Streamzoo. In this article, I’m going to show you what you can do with this app, as well as point out a few things you can do with it that you can’t do with Instagram.

What Is Streamzoo?

Streamzoo is the ultimate photo and video sharing app! With Streamzoo, you can connect with people all over the world, discover interesting content from others, and organize your mobile photos and videos into #streams.

Streamzoo will help you share, organize, and discover streams (or #streams) of mobile photos and videos. Like Instagram, you can add special filters, borders, and tilt shift effects to your photos for quick enhancements. Unlike Instagram, however, you can follow #hashtags to receive real-time feed updates, as well as see what is trending, popular, or most recent.

The free app includes 14 filters (Vibrance, Toy Hipster, Old School, etc.) and 15 borders (Old Film, Gritty, Throwback, etc.) to improve your photos with stunning effects. If you add tilt shift to your photos, you can create a miniaturized scaling effect with a shallow depth of field.

The social aspect of Streamzoo is pretty interesting as well. You can log in with your Facebook and Twitter accounts to find and follow contacts from your networks and Address Book. You can also post content to those networks from within the app, as well as to Tumblr, and you can Like and comment on others’ photos and videos.

Streamzoo also makes sharing competitive as you can earn points for sharing and receiving Likes on your content. There are even weekly and monthly leaderboards that allow you to compete and gain more exposure for your captures.

Using Streamzoo

Unlike Instagram, Streamzoo is available for both iPhone and Android devices. You can get to those from here.

Once you have Streamzoo installed, you’ll notice that the user interface and navigation are really simple. The dashboard and home screen has icons that take you to your feed, #streams, profile, leaderboard, etc. Your personalized profile will give you access to #streams and uploads.

The app includes fast buttons to add #hashtags you recently used to new photos you’ve taken, and autocomplete for @usernames and #hashtags. When viewing content, you also have full gallery view with pinch and zoom and landscape abilities.

Additional features include the ability to turn GPS location on for your photos and videos and background uploads for convenience. And did I mention Streamzoo is cross platform?

Conclusion

Streamzoo is a must have app for anybody looking to have some fun with their mobile photos and videos. There are a lot of Instagram alternatives out there, many of which don’t live up to their hype. I think Streamzoo is a completely different animal, so to speak.

Do you love to take photos and record videos with your phone?

Much of the iPhone camera’s popularity is due to its portability, but its appeal also stems from several of the hundreds of third-party iPhone camera apps that enable users to not only take photos, but to also process and share them from within the phone itself.

If you’re an avid iPhone camera user, you no doubt have heard of or use the popular Instagram app which seems to have a cult following. With over 150 million downloads of that app, it’s not surprising to see similar iPhone camera apps come onto the market.

Thus a new camera app called EyeEm may very well attract its own users and followers. EyeEm’s features and capabilities are similar to Instagram’s, but it has a few unique approaches. Let’s check them out.

Taking Photos

Like most iPhone apps, EyeEm is ready for use right out of the box. The opening screen asks you to set up a photo sharing account, either using your Facebook account or EyeEm’s own set up. The simple, well-designed interface presents you  with a nice size camera and “My Vibes” icons, on which you tap to get started.

EyeEm provides a slightly different approach however for taking pictures. Before you snap a photo you can select one of ten retro, lo-fi photo filters (Normal, “Magix”, “Wintage” B&W, Strawberry, etc) which are popular with many of the artsy iPhone camera apps.

Though your selected filter is applied after you click the shutter, you can replace it with another filter before the photo is saved. This approach saves you a tap or two, and it also provides you a preview of what your photo will look like before it is taken. You can also just shoot in normal mode and change to another filter after a shot is taken.

These type of artistic photo filters are becoming a little clichéd amongst iPhone camera apps, but they certainly save you the trouble of applying similar effects in Photoshop.

Unlike some camera apps, EyeEm also includes a built-in “flash” to brighten photos, and a front-facing camera option. However, there is no zoom slider or self-timer for setting the shutter release.

Saving and Tagging Photos

After photos are taken in EyeEm, they are saved to the camera roll on your iPhone, at which time you’re provided with the app’s tagging, photo management, and photo sharing features.

EyeEm uses the geo-location component of your iPhone to tag where a photo is taken, e.g. at home, at an outdoor location, or say at an event. Of course EyeEm can’t read the content of your photo, but it does provide an easy-to-use tagging process useful for managing and sharing your pictures. You can apply one or more tags to a photo as well as customize and add your own.

In terms of location tags, EyeEm also presents you with a list of places—such as street names, schools, and popular businesses—near and around the location where you take a photo. If an appropriate tag does not pop up, you tap on the “Check in” button a few times to see more tagging options. All this is to save you the trouble of having to manually type tags yourself. Depending upon how particular you are about tagging, you may or may not like this approach.

Sharing Photos

Similar to other camera apps, EyeEm provides options for sharing your photos on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Foursquare, and Tumblr. You can also share your photos privately with selected friends.

Also, as you probably expect, EyeEm includes photo sharing streams in which you can view photos uploaded by other users. Selected images can be tagged as favorites and shared via e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter.

There is also an “Edit Photo” option, but the title is misleading, for it only allows you to delete selected photos from your EyeEm account.

All in all, EyeEm is a well-designed and fairly straightforward iPhone camera app to use. It is not much different from Instagram, but it may well develop a huge number of followers, particularly since it is a free download from the App Store.

Let us know what you think of EyeEm. Will it be added to your folder of existing camera apps on your iPhone?

For other MUO articles about iPhone photography, start with these posts:

• 10 Powerful & Useful iPhone Camera Apps To Help You Take Better …
• Take Better Pictures With Free Camera Plus [iPhone]
• The Best Sites To Learn All About The Art Of iPhoneography

The best thing about these tools is that you don’t need any design skills or master Photoshop or any other complex image editing tool. Editing your photos takes seconds and in the end you get a high-quality photo effect. We have already mentioned the three tools below in our previous round-ups and reviews but hopefully this collection will get you inspired!

1. Photo505

Photo505 is a fun tool that has lots of built templates inside. Here’s a quick video tutorial on how to use the tool.

It’s very quick and fun: all you need to do is to upload the photo of your face or make a new photo using the web camera.

There are about 200 templates built where you can place your face in:

• Make your face appear in the newspaper or a magazine;
• Place your face in a street billboard, artwork, theater or “Wanted” poster;
• Put your photo in a T-shirt or tattoo.

The tool claims to use face detection technology to identify your face in a photo and place it in a new fun context. Frankly, the quality of the created fake photo is extremely high. See for yourself:

The resulting photo doesn’t have the Photo505 watermark, so you can freely use it elsewhere.

There’s also a Facebook application that lets you create funny photo manipulations using your album photos right inside your Facebook account. Besides using the app, you can quickly upload the edited photo to your Facebook account to share it with friends.

2. LunarPix

LunarPix is another high-quality online photo editor. It also features dozens of high-quality photo effects for you to choose from.

The tool will also apply photo filters to make your photo look natural:

Apart from offering plenty of awesome photo effects, there are also a lot of cool “face effects” featured. A “face effect” is a pre-built template (“face in a hole”) which you can put your face in to pretend you are standing next to a celebrity or appearing in a famous movie poster.

Face effects are broken down into “movies”, “celebrities, “costumes”, “kids” and “sport”.

Besides various manipulations with your face, the tool also lets you create pretty avatars and frame your photos.

3. WriteOnIt

WriteOnIt offers to create a card, photo montage, magazine cover or face in a hole photo.

The resulting photos seemed to be a bit lower quality than with the above two tools. Besides that, the tool adds a tiny watermark to it:

But the variety of photo effects offered still makes it a worthy tool to check out.

Besides, it works great for creating fake magazine covers. Not only can you feature yourself on a glossy magazine cover, you are also able to add fun text to complete the effect:

And here’s the outcome:

I imagine this can be a great tool to share your personal news with your blog readers or social media friends.

There are many more fun photo tools like these. Please share your favorite tools in the comments!

How Pano Works

If you have a point-and-shoot camera with a panorama mode, Pano will probably feel familiar. The app guides you through taking a series of pictures – you take the first shot, and then Pano takes a bit of its right edge, and shows it on the left side of the screen, semi-transparent.

This sounds complex, so here’s a screenshot:

The strip you see on the left was on the right of the original image I took. The black part in the screenshot contains the “live view” from the camera (can’t really make screenshots of the live view in most camera apps). You then gently rotate the phone to line up the image you’ve already taken with the new image – jut try to overlay them one on top of the other, as best as you can. Then tap the shutter button. Lather, rinse, repeat. The direction, by the way, is always left-to-right. If you mess up, you can always tap Undo.

Making The Final Image

Once you’re done taking your screenshots, tap the inviting-looking checkmark button, and Pano will set to work crunching your data and making it into a (hopefully) breathtaking vista of natural beauty and awe.

This actually takes a few moments, especially if your panorama contains five or six images.

Pitfalls

Pano works best for taking scenic images of distant views. Here’s what happened when I tried making a panorama of my workspace:

I do have two 24” monitors, but I can assure you the one on the right does not look that warped in real life. On the other hand, here’s what Pano created when I tested it with the view out of my balcony:

In fact, this screenshot doesn’t the the panorama justice. Here’s the panorama image in full width. You get extra-creepy points if you use it to figure out where I live.

For something that came out of a smartphone, this is very impressive. That is not to say it’s perfect; obviously the shot was handheld, and I was unable to match each image perfectly to the previous one. This results in artifacts like this one:

See that blurry-looking satellite dish in the middle? The one that looks like it has a halo. That’s what happens when Pano can’t stitch the images perfectly together. But other than that artifact, the full-scale version of the image doesn’t show any other noticeable defects. I wouldn’t necessarily make a poster out of it, but it does give a very good sense of what this particular view looks like (scary, and with lots of cranes, yes).

One last thing you should know is that Pano doesn’t export full-resolution images. My panorama was 645px tall, and the phone is capable of taking images that are at least 1400px tall (more than twice as much).

Bottom Line

Pano is not just another camera app. It is very task-specific, and it does what it say on the tin. If you want to preserve a beautiful view, Pano provides one great way to do so.  Let us know if you prefer another Android camera app for taking your panoramic views.