Digital cameras have become better quality, cheaper and with more choice, it’s sometimes hard to choose which ones right for you. But in any case, more people have digital cameras and more people have the internet which is why there are more choices to edit your photos online, and for free. There are four sites that I highly recommend. Photoshop Express, Splashup, Picnik, and Fotoflexer.
Photoshop Express
Photoshop Express gives every user a fairly familiar interface. Some of the buttons from Photoshop are here, but only the basic ones such as touchup, resize and distort. They have just added a Beta Decoration tab which is nothing special at all. The reason I do like it though, is because of its huge and clean interface as well as the ability to save your photos in a library online. The drawback is you do have to make an account although you can take a test drive to see how it works. It doesn’t provide a quick job, as you have to sign in, but it’s one of the quicker sites to use.
Splashup
This site is new to me. I came across it while doing this review. I was surprised to see it uses the same core as Photoshop Express and that’s the new Adobe AIR. This lets websites work much faster and it shows on Splashup. The great thing about Splashup is it looks like a real piece of software as it has the toolbar on top with File, Edit, and so on. It also is heavily based on Photoshop as the layout is virtually the same. An interesting fact is that it is one of the only web editors that will allow you to select a portion of the image and apply an effect. Usually you have to apply the effect on the whole image. Splashup uses layers which is very helpful when you want to do some more creative stuff. The downside is it isn’t very intuitive, much like Photoshop.
Picnik
PC World gave Picnik top marks but I’m not a total fan. Yes I admit that it is very intuitive and fun to go on, but it doesn’t have all the features I’d like it to have for what I normally do. To me it has very basic features except for it’s resizing tool which does a great job I must say. It’s much faster that what every other editer has and it does allow you to print, unlike any online editor I’ve seen.
Fotoflexer
I’ve saved best for last, because that’s what I do. Fotoflexer I will say right off the bat is that it is slow. But it makes up for that in a massive amount of useful tools such as it’s form of magic wand as well as other unique tools. Surprisingly, Photoshop Express and Splashup which is heavily based on Photoshop, does not have. It has 34 effects and you can go in full-screen mode. You are allowed to upload more than one image at a time which is great for editing images heavily. The tools are seperated into different categories and the only problem I found with that, is it’s hard to figure out which one a tool may be in as you can only see one category at a time.
What to download for Editing Photos for Free on Your Desktop
If you want something special for your desktop that you’ll always have access to, I highly recommend Paint.Net. It’s free, offers a ton of tools comparable to Photoshop and it has a much friendlier interface, almost like a Mac. To download Paint.Net go to download.com. It is compatible with Microsoft Windows Vista and you can get it for Mac.
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