I didn't realize this until within the last week, but there's an easy way to edit any Flickr picture you have right on the web and directly replace the old one, if you want: Flickr has partnered with Picnik to bring you its online image editor. Access it by clicking on one of your pictures to see the detail view, then look for "EDIT PHOTO" next to "DELETE" on the toolbar atop the pic. How's that for slick integration?
Advanced compositing and clipping paths are out of the question, but if you need to do a little touchup, this may be a nicer — and most importantly, faster — solution than needing to download something to your HD, process it, then upload it again. All those steps add up to wasted time.
I'm disappointed with Photoshop Express: since the desktop version is a proverbial "800-tonne gorilla", I expected it to be more lightweight. Instead, in the few days after launch, I got slow-loading, a decent-looking-but-too-many-choices interface, and the surprising lack of no apparent way to edit some sample photos without having to add your own. Picnik offers this via its "Play with a demo photo", which is really important (I can't understate this!) for giving someone a hands-on understanding without making them signup first.
Even more blustery, Photoshop Express was announced over a year ago and looks like it missed the target date, and despite what Michael Arrington predicted, I don't think Picnik is worried. And in a recent TechCrunch followup, neither do they.
What's even more surprising is that Photoshop Express mostly offers a limited subset of Picnik's effects, tho to be fair, the latter needs a premium subscription (US$24.95/year, same as a Flickr Pro account) to access all its effects. None of them are something I haven't seen achievable before in some capacity (more frame styles would be good), but the integrated package speaks highly of the whole product.
Before I go further, I gripe about desktop Photoshop's organization of filters: it's horrendous and patchwork because subsequent generations of PS have added new features without cleaning up the existing ones. I can't even organize them like I could in a web browser or an audio editor like Sound Forge (and I think there are far more VST effects than Photoshop-compatible ones). There's little rhyme and reason to the categorization, and Corel Painter is even more guilty of this — it must be the world's most sophisticated natural media painting app with the worst UI, twiddly little arrows and other clusterfudgery that would make Steve Jobs' prodigal son cry.
But anyway, I'm not here to unduly bash products, but praise the ones I like, and I applaud Picnik for making such a fun, easy-to-use gem: besides a great usability, it feels very responsive: Adobe needs to learn some lessons from this, and also not be so oriented towards non-HTML content because one prime strength of COLOURlovers vs. kuler continues to be that the latter is based on Adobe AIR, goshdarnit, I can't bookmark any pages. That's sad.
I've been using Picnik to tweak some "first life" photos as well as pull Second Life ones in for a quick session. For example:
BEFORE PICNIK 
AFTER PICNIK 
That took 2 minutes, and feels rewarding. Great if you're intimidated by traditional image editors — I'm always on the lookout for inspiring tools which approach traditional problems from fresh perspectives. On a tangent, Naked light looks pretty kewl, albeit Mac-only (altho you could try the "Hackintosh" route). Just as how audio apps have emphasized realtime results, I'm glad to see more spontaneity apply to the visual domain too.
Nice review of Picnik. I'm going to have to experiment with it a bit on my own stuff on Flickr.
I *love* picnik! I don't really do complex editing - mainly crop,etc. and thi just saves me so much time!
Now if only Flickr had buttons to download whatever size you wanted without having to open the picture up at that size first!
I see that you mention Naked Light. Im the author of a sort of similar program also for Mac. Graphics are also constructed with lego bricks. The program is still an alpha release and isn't really comparable with Picnic nor Photoshop express. I hope you find inspiration.
toolboxapp.com
@Michael: Thanks, I look forward to seeing how it comes out, thanks for sharing your Flickr photostream URL!
@HeadBurro: I STRONGLY AGREE about this, it takes a couple clicks (and page loads) more than it should to get to Flickr picture sizes. I'd like an easier way to copy embedding code for blog posting too.
@Simon: Oh, very cool! I appreciate finding out about new tools so thanx for sharing THIS ONE YOU MADE (awesome!), at first blush I wonder if anyone's made cool motion graphics derived from Toolbox yet… looks good for that.
If version 1 becomes a success then I will focus on animation + 3d in version 2. Right now one can only do stills. Yes, motion graphics is part of the plan. My great source of inspiration is werkkzeug (WZ), it can do this. WZ is interesting in the way that it combines both 2d, 3d and animation.
Ok, I've been giving Picnik a try now for a couple of weeks and I have to say that I love it. It's exactly what I need at my skill level for editing snapshots from Second Life. I'd encourage anyone to give it a try as it is incredibly easy to use. Soon I will upgrade to a pro flickr account so I can stretch my skills a bit more with some of the more advanced effects. I have discovered that a little effect or a small crop can go a long way towards improving my snap shots. That's probably true with any image editor though. Thank you Torley for bringing Picnik to our attention.
@Michael: You're totally welcome!
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