It's No Picnik ... Or Is It?

I love taking photographs. But I love editing them even more. Doing graphic design for a living has allowed me access to a lot of cool programs like Adobe Illustrator and of course, Photoshop. And while I use Photoshop for things like color correction and removing scratches or dried on food from a child's face (it happens!), it can get to be a very involved process.

I also use free programs like Picasa for quick processing like cropping and I love the soft glow feature. And I have just discovered Picnik. It is free to register and you edit your photos online. I have found some really fun effects that you can apply with a click of a mouse.

I uploaded this photo to Picnik. It is right from my camera, unedited.

Edits: crop Effects: vignette

Edits: crop Effects: 1960's

Edits: crop Effects: cross process; border frame

Edits: crop Effects: cinema scope; vignette; focal soften

Edits: crop Effects: teeth whiten; orton-ish; museum matte

As you can tell I have had a lot of fun trying out the different features of this program. I think it is a great tool for creating fun images. And if I were a scrapbooker, I would probably use it a lot for my layouts because you can add text, clip-art images and texture effects to your photos.

As fun as it is, I will most likely stick to Picasa and Photoshop for my everyday editing. My goal is to do as little editing to my photos as possible as I strive to become a better photographer. Now if I would just learn how to use the settings on my camera ...