To get back into the habit of blogging, here’s the odd piece of tech advice: online photo editing.
Have you recently wondered how to edit some photos or graphics? Depending on how much you’re into this topic, choices often include the ever so ubiquitous variants of Adobe Photoshop and the open source (ie free) GIMP.
Due to clever marketing (and different forms of sharing), some form or another of Photoshop has been made its way on many computers these days. I’m not to judge on the differences between these and/or GIMP, although the latter appears to have come a long way in the last few years (yet still suffers from its chronic lack of development due to its free nature and dedicated but tiny developer base).
The question is – what will you do if you have neither software or one of its competitors installed and want to make a few simple to moderate changes to your favourite holiday photo or to get rid of this spot on your application photo to win the next casting show?
It’s the internet, stupid. Or, rather, it’s (free) web-based photo editing services which provide an easy-to-use alternative. You might have even used some of them before – for instance, think of instagram’s editing features on your smartphone.
I have been searching for a service which is less overwhelming than GIMP but more extensive than the basic editing features of my favourite image viewer, IrfanView. What I’ve found is pixlr.
Pixlr provides different modi, including a simple express mode (which is also available on Android and iOS devices) and an editor mode which even lets you create and manage different layers (isn’t this what has made the above-mentioned full-software packages that useful?) amongst many other features.
I will refrain from reviewing the different options and just suggest to check it out. If you need an easy-to-use tool to edit photos, pixlr might be for you. It is for me.
Be aware that pixlr uses Flash but your photos will not be uploaded – they remain where they belong: on your computer and nowhere else (or: sign up for free and save them in the their cloud if you wish).
Why not have a look yourself?
And if you’re really just looking for a quick touch up spot fix, have a look at this pixlr blog post.
