Swinging High

Just a little over four months ago I posted about Picnik ( a day late and a dollar short) which closed officially on April 19, 2012.  They have moved some of their most loved assets over to the Google+ group.  Just prior to its closing several tweets on Twitter recommended PicMonkey . 

 This free web 2.0 application has the clearest, most concise and humorous Privacy Policy and Terms of Use that I've read yet.  Not to mention the About and Team sections which are worth reading just for fun.  Bottom line...users need to be 13 years of age.

When you access the site four boxes appear on screen; three filled with images you may edit.  The fourth represents an image of your own to edit by uploading from your computer.  When you import your image a new screen appears with your picture front and center.

To the left is a panel of editing tools.  The first set of tools are for the basic edits, crop, rotate, exposure, colors, sharpen and resize.  By clicking on the smaller icons on the far left of the bar the basic edits shift from top to bottom to:  effects, touch up (humans), text, overlays, frames and new.

The thirty-seven current effects are sorted into tried and true, basic, camera look, paintbox, area, artsy and advanced.  Fifteen touch-ups for skin, mouth, eyes and just a couple more are at the ready.  Fonts, thirty-two to be exact, can be added to your images.  Overlays or shapes come in twenty-two options.  There are eight frames from which to choose.  And seven new textures are available to try.

Here is an original image on the left.  The one on the right has been cropped, exposure and colors adjusted and the sharpening tool used.
In the third photograph I applied the effects of soften, dark edges and film grain.

In this final image I added some text which you can size, change the color, fade, make bold or in italics, justify and blend modes or right click for even more options.  I also added a drop shadow frame.  Some of the options will become part of the Royale package eventually but for now they are free, if you don't mind having a crowned monkey in your graphic.

 

It's safe to say that PicMonkey has my vote as a worthy photo editing tool.  I could have spent hours trying all the options for images.