So I don’t know about you but I do a lot of image editing and optimization in my everyday web development tasks. Typically, in times past, I’ve used Adobe Fireworks CS3 and Adobe Photoshop CS3 for these activities. I’m still a heavy Fireworks user (I just love the CS3 update) but sometimes I want to do some quick and dirty editing without having to deal with the overhead of a desktop app (Photoshop I’m looking at you!). Enter Picnik.

So what is Picnik?

Well it’s an online photo editor with easy to use but powerful editing tools, all from a user-friendly interface in your web browser. All you have to do to get started is upload an image.

I first found out about Picnik about this time last year. Bitnik, the company behind Picnik, is a small operation based in Seattle run by a few ex-Microsoft employees. In the short time they’ve been around Picnik has gone through some pretty awesome changes. When I first started using it, it was pretty basic and still in beta. You could resize, crop, adjust color balance, apply a select few filter effects, apply a border, and a few other useful things.

Throughout 2007 they kept enhancing Picnik to the point that it was beginning to rival some of the most major features of Photoshop. All while remaining user-friendly and easily accessible for even a neophyte. Here’s a screenshot:

As you can see I used it to (partially) create the header image for realtortech.org.

Some techniques in Picnik are just a whole lot more straightforward than Photoshop. For example if you want to create nifty rounded corners on an image all you have to do is select “Rounded Edges” from the Frames menu:

Pretty darn easy and a far cry from the annoyance of accomplishing the same technique in Photoshop.

Probably the coolest thing about Picnik though is it’s extension for Firefox (and now Internet Explorer). This allows you to right-click on any image you find on the web and load it in the Picnik app for editing!

There are so many things you can do and this really only scratches the surface of Picnik’s functionality.

Many of Picnik’s features are available for free but to use some of the extended features you need to sign up for a premium account, which I would highly recommend. It’s cheap too…only $24.95 a year.

Overall, Picnik is a great workflow enhancer and can save a lot of time when you need to do basic to moderately advanced image manipulations.

What are your favorite alternative image editing tools?