10 Online Photo Editors That You Definitely Need to Bookmark

by Anoop Engineer

Online image editors are in a rage these days. Everyday, you hear about the release of a new online photo editor that claims to be the next big thing.

From among the great number of online editors, we have hand picked some of the best ones that we found to be are noteworthy. With each site description, we have tried to tell you how or what feature of the editor forced us to include it in the list.

1. Picnik

Picnik seems to be the most popular online image editor in this list. The interface of the site is beautiful, responsive and can put many desktop applications to shame. You don’t need to know anything about photo editing to use Picnik. Most noteworthy feature is its integration with other Web2.0 services. You can pull photos directly from most photo sharing sites such as Flickr, Picasa Web Albums, Facebook, Photobucket and pretty much provide any image URL to start editing it.

Picnik.com | Bookmark on delicious

2. Splashup

Splashup, earlier known as Fauxto, is a web based photo editor that looks just like a desktop application. Users coming from Photoshop should feel right at home with this editor.

You can open files from your computer or from all popular photo sharing sites. You can open multiple images in a tabbed environment. It supports the concept of layers, like Gimp and Photoshop. Splashup also has the ability to import images from your webcam.

Splashup.com | Bookmark on delicious

3. Pixlr

Relatively new into the arena, but have made quite a big fan fare in a short time. Pixlr described as Photoshop in a browser, continues to amaze many.

It lacks features like importing from other sites like flickr, but you can still open an image by specifying its URL.

Pixlr.com | Bookmark on delicious

4. Snipshot

Unlike the three editors mentioned above, Snipshot is not a flash based editor. It’s a highly responsive, Ajax powered image editor. So, this should be your choice if stranded in a computer having no flash plugins. You can import photos stored in your computer or from the web by mentioning its address. You can also import photos from flickr using a bookmarklet. Snipshot allows you to export and save your photos in a number of different formats - JPG, PNG, TIF, BMP and even PDF and Photoshop PSD.

Snipshot.com | Bookmark on delicious

5. Pixenate

Pixenate, formerly called PXN8 is a simple but intuitive application. With a straight forward interface, it lets you play with all its features relatively easy compared to others. You can edit photos stored in your computer or import from a web site and save also save the edited photo back to your flickr account.

Pixenate.com | Bookmark on delicious

6. Picture2Life

Picture2life is just another online image editor. But what makes it stand apart is the radical UI design for an image editor. Unlike all classical picture editors with toolboxes and a number of buttons, Picture2life has a descriptive side panel stacked into four vertical tabs – Quick Fixes, One Clicks, All and Featured. Selecting any tab replaces the sidebar with a new sidebar that contains a number of options like Brightness, Color, Contrast etc. But, instead of showing them as buttons, it takes your picture and shows you how the picture will look if the effect is applied and uses this as thumbnails for the buttons. Pretty useful for beginners who don’t know the difference between stuff like hue and saturation (and that includes us).

Picture2life.com | Bookmark on delicious

7. LunaPic

LunaPic isn’t as jazzy as the other image editors in this list. However, this one provides ability to convert your images to animated GIF files, which differentiates it from others. There are a couple of ready made fancy animation effects, that you can apply to your photo. This is an apt tool for creating your social network profile image – for Facebook, MySpace etc.

LunaPic.com | Bookmark on delicious

8. FotoFlexer

Want to have a Picasa running in your browser? Try FotoFlexer. It describes itself as the most powerful online digital photo editor in existence. If you are searching for a feature in online picture editors, then FotoFlexer has it.

FotoFlexer.com | Bookmark on delicious

9. Adobe Photoshop Express

If it’s from Adobe, it’s gonna be big. Photoshop express, apart from being an image editor, also acts as a photo organizer and online photo storage. It provides up to 2 GB of online space and ability to create and share albums which distinguishes it from other online image editors.

www.photoshop.com/express/ | Bookmark on delicious

10. Aviary

Aviary is a suite of 4 tools among which Phoenix – an online image editor is the one which we are interested right now. Phoenix is a very powerful image editor that can be said as a true competitor for Photoshop, just that this one runs from a browser. The Phoenix page contains many videos on using it to produce some stunning photo effects.

A.viary.com | Bookmark on delicious