Hope for ex-Picnikers!

Rose, a photo by theroamincatholic on Flickr.

Okay, this is a side-note for interested parties---this blog is not about photography, but I do make use of my photography here, much of which has been processed using Picnik. This post is for all the other soon-to-be ex-Picnikers out there. Google has decided to shut down the online photo editor, Picnik, in order to drag us kicking and screaming into using Google+ for all our social networking, photo-editing, sitting-perpetually-in-front-of-a-screen-rather-than-talking-to-the-person-next-to-you needs. I've been using Picnik for a few years and am quite disappointed this service will soon be unavailable. Through a lot of experimentation, I've found the effects and editing techniques that really work for me on Picnik...so now I have to start all over again on something else.

I've been looking around and the best thing I've found so far is Pixlr Express, which is specifically recommended for users of Picnik. About a year ago, a friend very kindly gave me a version of Photoshop she was no longer using...but it was just too complex...or too technical for me, and I never got the hang of it. I liked the 'one-stop editing' and 'push-button effects' Picnik offered. Pixlr Express is the closest thing to this. Of course it takes time & experimentation to find what works for you and what works for each individual composition, but I'm happy with the results so far. Although it doesn't offer the same 'amenities' as Picnik, it has lots of great tools of its own. This rose was textured with Pixlr's tie-dye effect. I love it!

Check out Pixlr Express at pixlr.com/express/