#89 Basic Photo Editing

Digital cameras are so affordable, pretty much everyone uses them. With the prevalence of social networking online, it's no wonder that picture sharing is so popular, and it goes without saying that if you're sharing your pictures, you might have some incentive to make sure they go out into the World Wide Web looking their best. There are a number of online photo editing sites that can help. Some of them are Picnik, Photoshop, and Fotoflexer.

The most obvious advantage to using an online site is the price: free! While professional photographers might want (and actually use) all the features that come with expensive photo editing software packages, I would guess that for most digital camera owners, the current free technology online is sufficient.

One could spend an inordinate amount of time playing on the various sites with their numerous features and a whole plethora of options. The site I spent the most time on was Picnik. I found Picnik very easy to use and I liked the way I could select a feature and see how it would change my picture, before actually "applying" it. Perhaps Picnik designers were thinking of the fumbling or new user when they placed the "undo" button so prominently in the upper right corner of the site. It think that was good planning. Premium features are available with a subscription. (I was pretty excited at what I could do with the "airbrush", but then I discovered it's a premium feature. Rats.)

It seems to me that the editing features one prefers to use depends largely on the individual photograph and its particular strengths and/or weaknesses. I was really pleased with how Picnik's sharpness and contrast features improved an old personal photograph. I also used crop and museum mat to edit my photo: