Let's Picnik: Photo Editing Made Easy!

It’s been a long time since I’ve been so excited about something that I couldn’t sleep, but that’s exactly what’s happening to me right now.  The clock just struck 12:44 AM and I finally just gave up and pulled myself out of bed because I knew there would be no chance for shuteye until I released a little of my excitement.

Thank you, thank you, thank you (did I put enough emphasis on that?) Amber Naslund for introducing me to my new favorite toy, Picnik.com in your article 8 Apps I Use and Love.  If you can’t tell, I’m absolutely thrilled.  Enough blabbering about my excitement though - let me tell you about what Picnik actually does (gosh, I’m already back to the excitement again).

Picnik is a online photo editing site, which may not sound all that thrilling, that is UNTIL you use it yourself.  I’ve always admired the way images are presented on blogs like City of Dionne and have frequently wondered how the heck she is able to make them look so good, but I never figured I could actually do it myself without spending a lot of money or going through some sort of formal training to make it happen.  Well, it has happened!  And guess what?  It’s FREE to use!  Take a look at a before and after shot of a pair of my earrings...

The days of pestering my husband to help edit my images are no more!  I’m putting on my big girl shoes and diving into Picnik head first.  There are a ton of incredible options out there to edit your images, but this one has some unique tools and it’s so easy to use, even a novice like me got the hang of it on my first try.  I’ve only had a few minor struggles with the product and I’m hopeful those will go away as I get more experience under my belt.

I believe that taking good product shots is one the biggest struggles creative entrepreneurs face with getting their work online.  Services like Picnik make it feasible for folks to easily enhance their images without a ton of frustration.  It’s a huge benefit for the creative community and I’m so happy to see that Picnik is based out of my hometown of Seattle.  It makes me want to go knock on their door and thank them. 

One aspect I especially love about Picnik is that it is integrated with just about everything, from Flickr to Facebook to Picasa as well as many other sites where you may have your images stored.  I’m just disappointed that I didn’t come across Picnik sooner.  It’s been around since 2005! Here's another sample of one of my before and after shots...

Let me know what you think.  I encourage you to go try Picnik out for yourself to play around with your product shots, and it’s also great for just managing your everyday photos!  Alright, now it’s time for bed, AGAIN!  You probably guessed it - I’ve been playing on Picnik for quite a while now.

Keep your eye out for my Byte-Syze Learning tutorial on how to edit an image with Picnik later this week and let me know if you've come across any online photo editing tools that you can't resist!