Software Review - Picnik

This morning I went to a round table discussion on learning tools for instructors. This is part of SAIT's annual Faculty Showcase, which is a conference-style learning and sharing opportunity for SAIT faculty. Since I'm fairly new at SAIT, I decided to go to a few sessions, learn some things and meet some of my colleagues.

For my part of the round-table discussion, I did a quick overview on using drop.io in my own teaching practice. I've been using drop.io as a way for students to upload their picture-of-the-week images. Drop is for simple, private sharing and exchange of files. Many people use it instead of ftp. Why drop.io instead of Flickr? Students know it's not public, so are not afraid to show "work in progress" and learning experiments.

But, back to the topic at hand. During the round-table I learned about a great online software for image editing called Picnik. Picnik is a very simplified Photoshop-like image editing program. Some of the features are:

• re-sizing files - big benefit for my beginner SAIT PHOT 200 students who may not know how to do this
  
• cropping and rotating
  
• exposure
  
• fixing colour - finding neutral
• sharpening
• red-eye removal
  
• adding text
• distortion and artsy filters like: film grain, puzzle pieces, warping, holga-like
  
• frames and borders - postage stamp, Polaroid (seen here) etc.
• cloning, curves and levels, histogram view
  
• saving and sharing - you can re-size at this point too
• you can grab photos from sharing sites like Flickr and Picassa, Facebook, Photobucket, Webshots or your own hard drive
  

I can't say enough. Go to their web site. (I'm not getting paid for this.) You don't even have to log on to start using the features. Use one of their sample images. Picnik has all the basics and more. If you do create an account, it will remember your last 10 images. Creating an account is free.

If you want more features, Picnik premium is only USD$24.95 per year! That's a whole lot cheaper than Photoshop, but comparable to Adobe Photoshop Elements, which is about $100 and will last 2-3 years before the next big upgrade. Photoshop Elements though, will open RAW files using Adobe Camera Raw. Picnik won't. It is probably comparable to Apple's iPhoto, but much more intuitive. Much better than Windows Irfanview or Picture Editor though. Hey it's free and you get a lot for free with this online software.

If you do presentations, blogs, web sites, newsletters, or are working away from your main Photoshop machine, or away from home and in a panic to get some images ready, Picnik is the way to go!

p.s. Another Picnik reveiw can be found on my new teaching blog.