Image Editing Websites

As I create my ancillary tasks, I need a place in which I can edit and manipulate images and text. My first thought was Adobe Photoshop. It's a well recognised image editing software and has been installed in my school. However, I wanted to work from home and buying Adobe Photoshop is expensive. For years I have been using free image editing websites  to manipulate any photos I have taken. Most free photo editing sites are a lot more basic than Photoshop and therefore easier to use. They can provide ready made filters to which you can set the transparency of and erase in places. They offer spot healing and other such tools Photoshop would offer.

The first website I used was www.picmonkey.com. It worked as a basic photo editing website and was free to use. I used this website for the most part of my ancillary tasks; adding text, overlaying images and basic shapes (stars). Picmonkey offers the basics (contrast, cropping, colours, re-sizing), filters (Orton, Cross Process, B/W, Sepia), 'touch ups' (air brush, wrinkle remover, red-eye fix, reduce/melt/fill), text (variety of fonts), overlays, frames and textures.

Halfway through editing my portrait magazine advert, Picmonkey changed it's policy. Like other photo editing websites that were once completely free, Picmonkey introduced the paid membership system where only 'premium' users could access all areas of the site. This left very little aspects free. This was a problem as I'd been using the fonts provided only on this website for my digipak and wanted the same fonts for my advert. If I moved to a different editing website, I wouldn't have access to these fonts. Luckily the fonts I was using weren't for premium users only. This meant I could add my text and then carry on editing in a different website.

I found a new, free photo editing website called pixlr.com. This website has three levels of editing. The first is 'Advanced', which has the basic style of Adobe Photoshop and is aimed at professional editors who have experience with software such as Photoshop. The second and the one I chose was the 'Efficient' level. This has many of the same characteristics as Picmonkey and so I knew I'd be able to use it easily and have set filters and text ready to use and manipulate. The last level is 'Playful' which allows the user to add filters and frames to their images but they don't have much else in the way of photo manipulation such as 'contrast' or 'cropping'.  Pixlr 'Efficient' level, as mentioned, functions just as Picmonkey does with the exception of it being completely free.