Add Awesomeness to Your Photos with Picnik

In their FAQs, Picnik describe themselves thusly:

Picnik is photo editing awesomeness, online, in your browser. It’s the easiest way on the Web to fix underexposed photos, remove red-eye, or apply effects to your photos.

Seems like it would be tough to undersell yourself in a paragraph that uses the phrase “photo editing awesomeness,” but that’s just what Picnik does here. I previously posted on using GIMP to edit your images. While extremely powerful, GIMP is likely a little more tool than most users need. That is where Picnik comes in. Picnik offers the standard tools for rotating, cropping, and resizing your images, plus it has some additional tools like color adjustments, red-eye reduction and sharpening. All these things can be very valuable, but they don’t exactly exemplify “photo editing awesomeness.” The awesomeness comes in under the “Create” tab, where you can access a slew of filters and enhancements that achieve stunning effects with absolutely minimal effort.

Panography-ish Filter – Create Effects within Picnik

The interface for Picnik is perhaps the most usable I have seen for an image editing tool, better than even iPhoto. Applying effects is as easy as clicking a button and then playing with the associated sliders (even this description doesn’t do justice to the simplicity). There are 33 effects in total (two of these are available only to Premium Members). The results of all are dead-on and would require some heavy lifting in Phototoshop to achieve.

The samples below demonstrate the results of a handful of my favorite filters:

Original Image

Boost Effect

Cinemascope Effect

1960s Effect

The beauty of Picnik is that it provides an environment where you can play with your images without risk of destroying them, and once you get started it is, quite honestly, hard to stop. Best of all, Picnik is free. Some advanced features, like full-screen mode, additional effects, and the ability to work with a greater number of photos, are available for a $24.95 annual charge. It is a great way to add some awesomeness to the photos in your drop-dead gorgeous Inkubook.