Edit Photos Online for Free

You have just received a set of photos from your recent vacation. You know your friends are eager to see those pictures. You’re about to upload them to your Flickr photostream when, while browsing through the photos, a thought hit you: they need editing. But you’re in the office and your office computer does not have Adobe Photoshop installed. And even if there is, you know you’ll get lost simply trying to adjust contrast. So what will you do?

All you need is an online photo editor. With it, you would not need Photoshop to perform simple corrections or enhancements on your photos. These online photo editors allow you to perform the following basic functions:

·         Cropping

·         Adjusting brightness and contract

·         Sharpening

·         Blurring

·         Resizing

·         Creating effects like sepia and grayscale

·         Saving in multiple image formats

You have to take note though that since your photo editor is web-based, there may be limitations compared with standalone applications like Photoshop or Picasa Editor. But there are tools out there that give you almost everything you need. I’m going to present to you 3 of the most loved photo editors in the web today. And the best thing about them is that they are FREE.

If you use Flickr, you’re probably already familiar with Picnik. It’s Flickr’s completely integrated photo editing application. All you need to do is go to your Flickr photo, click the Edit Photo button to launch Picnik, and you’re set to play. Of course, if you don’t like to edit inside Flickr, it’s fine. Just sign up for free at the Picnik website. Then when you’re done editing, you can upload your photos to Flickr. Clever, eh?

Picnik is Flash-based. It is considered the fastest in the new breed of online photo editors and has the most intuitive user interface. It’s probably the best of the bunch. Thus, it is no surprise that its fan base grows with each day. For a handy set of Picnik Tutorials check out our previous blog posts.

While we love Picnik. It’s certainly not the only option available. 

Unlike Picnik, Phixr is developed using Ajax. As such, it has the potential of giving users complete editing satisfaction. The most attractive feature of Phixr is its ability to make artistic Polaroid snapshots and to insert comment bubbles and effects in your photographs. Also, you can directly upload your edited work to a lot of photo-sharing websites like Facebook, Flickr, and Picasaweb among others.

What are you waiting for? Explore these online photo editors and begin transforming your photos now.

 You probably already know that Adobe Photoshop is the magic wand of photo editing. But for more demanding image editing projects, Photoshop alone is not enough. There are tools out there that add more advanced capabilities like design blurring and color embossing to your Photoshop software. They are called plugins.

• Paint Shop Pro
• Photoshop Elements
• PhotoImpact
• Corel PhotoPaint
• Adobe Fireworks

To run the plugins in programs other than Photoshop, instructions are widely available online.

 Photo credit: chylinski

 

1. Open your chosen photo in Photoshop. This effect works best with well-exposed pictures. You may first adjust brightness and contrast, or do any post-processing adjustment you wish to do with your photo.

2. Create a new layer. From the menu, click Layer, New, and then Layer via Copy. Shortcut: Ctrl + J (Windows)or Cmd + J (Mac).

 

3. A new layer labeled Layer 1 will appear on the Layers palette. This contains your foreground image, which is an exact copy of the background. You may rename your foreground layer if you wish to by double-clicking the layer name. In my case, I labeled it as Foreground.

 

4. Making sure that the foreground layer is highlighted in the Layers palette, pull down the Filters menu and select Blur, then Gaussian Blur.

5. On the Gaussian Blur dialog box, indicate the radius of the blur you wish to apply on your photo. The ideal scale value is when your photo is blurred enough to hide the details, but you should still be able to recognize the image behind it. Start with 5.0 and adjust from there. In the swan photo, I selected a value of 5.0 pixels.

 

6. With the foreground layer still selected in the Layers palette, select the blending mode called Multiply. In this step, watch as your photo instantly turns into something new!

 

7. From an ugly duckling to a glamorous swan, your photo has entered the world of dreams

 

8. Pull down the Layer menu and choose Flatten the Image. This will merge the two layers so that you have just one image.

9. Finally, click File, save the image as JPEG and you’re done.

Regular readers of the blog will be familiar with the free online image editing program Picnik. You can check out our introduction to Picnik if you are curious. For the curious, the four tutorials in that series will give you an indepth introduction to Picnik.

In today’s tutorial we are going to show you how to use some of the basic Picnik tools to create a very special canvas print, printed card or picture for Valentines day. We have deliberately tried to keep it as simple as possible.

Choose your image

Pick an image that represents a powerful personal moment between you and your partner. An image that features both of you is always ideal You can see our test image below.

Intensify  the colour

Increase the saturation of the image slightly to help create more vivid colours.

Simply click on Edit - Colour from the main menu:

When you boost the saturation make sure that the colours still look realistic.

Add a border

Add a border to your image by going to Create - Frames

You can choose both an inner and outer colour and alter the size of each. Remember to click "Apply" when you have finalised your choices to save your changes.

We applied two separate frames - one square and one circular

Add a shape

Picnik have added a whole range of Valentine’s Day themed shapes and we are going to use them to add a splash of colour to our personalised message. Click on "Create" and then "Shapes"

Choose an image from the available selection. It will then appear in the centre of your image. You can alter the size of the image by clicking on any of the four round shapes on each corner. You can rotate the image by clicking on the round shape on the centre top of the image.

Place it in an area where there will also be space to add some text.

Add some text

Without changing the screen - click on the text tag next to the shape button on the menu.

You can see the available options below:

Make sure you scroll down the font choices until you reach those with a Valentines Day theme.

You can choose:

• The type of font
• The font size
• The font colour

Enter your text to the box in the top of the left-hand menu and then click "Add Text"

You can change the size and rotation of the text in the same way as we worked with our custom shape.

You can see our choices below:

Save your image

Make sure you save your image by going to Save and Share.

If you are particularly happy with the final effect Brilliant Prints can help you turn your final image into a very special Valentine’s day canvas print. Alternatively, submit your image to us for our inaugaral Valentines Day Competition and you could win an 11 x 14 inch print with your image delivered before Valentine’s Day.