Having access to online photo editing or management software can be very handy, especially when it’s free. While they may not have many of the amazing extras that professional editing software dished up, they have enough to get your snaps online in a jiffy. And they’ve been quietly fighting for dominance among them so they keep adding fabulous extras.
Flickr
This chap has been around for a while and is a massive time sink if you’re not careful. One of the best features about Flickr is its uploader. It’s super fast, extremely efficient and doesn’t have you cradling your head in your hands after futile fiddly minutes.
You can tag, set into folders and share with other humans. The time sink bit kicks in when you get lost in the millions of other photos taken by other people and the increasingly brilliant range of groups. Like Photos of Cows Noses. More about photo storage and management than editing, Flickr is free and easy to use.
Picasa
Edit your images, sort out folders and upload to personalised albums. Picasa really is a superb one-stop shop that delivers quick and efficient out-the-box photo editing with many tools whipping your images into shape after a single click. Crop, for example, will offer you three options for cropping your image, often in ways that you didn’t envision and that really enhance your pics. Thanks to complete Google Mail integration you can email pics directly from the editing suite.
Upload to Picasa Web Albums in an instant and control who views what with your authorisation panel. The web albums are not as good looking as Flickr though. It will even sort your images according to its fancy facial recognition software that does a remarkably good job, although you will find the odd mistake here and there.
Picnik
In December 2007 Flickr offered up Picnik as its photo editing challenge to Picasa. In March of this year, Google bought Picnik. Unlike Picasa that needs you download the software onto your machine, Picnik tells you to go ahead and tweak your shots online.
No registration, no payments, just free software to sort those shots. There are loads of extras like fonts, special effects and shapes to choose from and you’ll definitely get hooked. Ideal for anyone who has long distance journeys and mobile internet, and who likes the idea of a one-click animal blue-eye fixer. Yeah, me too…
Photoshop.com
You get 2GB of free space and access to some of the cool editing tools that the megabuck software has to offer. Not only that but there are Android apps, iPhone apps and WinMo apps that offer up photo editing for those who just can’t stop.
The interface is sleek and chic and is definitely tailored for those who have a more refined palette. While the editing options are pretty basic, the programme still includes some nifty extras and it’s all accessible online.
GIMP
Hellishly complicated and with a rather steep learning curve at first, GIMP easily rates as one of the most impressive and sleek free photo editing programs on the net. GIMP (GNU Manipulation Program) neatly hands you powerful photo editing and retouching tools, image composition tools and neat integration with a ton of different operating systems and languages.
If you’re prepared to spend the time learning about how it works and getting the most out of it, you really will fall in love with it. There’s plenty of advice on the site so you won’t get lost. If you do decide to make GIMP your friend, a donation to the hardworking folk will undoubtedly be appreciated.
