Picnik Photo Enhancing Tutorial and Premium Subscription Giveaway

Sep 28, 2009 :: {58}

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UPDATED 10.6.09 with winner (see below)

If you are like me and love to blog, chances are you also love to include photos in your posts.

However, if you are NOT a professional photographer (as I am clearly not) and perhaps do not own a decent camera, it can be discouraging to incorporate your piddly digital snap-photos into your blog and have them look good.

This is where I find Picnik to be an amazing blogging tool.

Picnik is somewhat like Photoshop and other photo-editing software but it is indeed NOT software, rather an application that you can run directly in your web browser. It also does NOT come with a hefty pricetag. The basic version of Picnik is actually FREE!

While I do use Photoshop on occasion and mostly when I need to have a digital photo printed, I use Picnik almost exclusively for photos included in my blog, on Twitter, Facebook and any other online forums.

Picnik allows you to take your SOOC (staight out of the camera) photo and apply effects of varying degrees to it, to transform it into an interesting and well-edited photo.

You can edit the photo’s contrast, colors, size, and add tons of professional effects. Also, now available through their “Touch Up Suite” you can enhance eye-color and brightness, remove blemishes and wrinkles, even-out skin tone and much more! You can also create a collage using your edited photos and even add photos to create a flash slide show to embed into your posts.

While I’m going to eventually show you all of that fancy stuff, today I want to share with you the basic editing capabilities of Picnik with a few simple effects applied to a photo (like I did awhile back).

Here is the original SOOC photo of myBuddy taken this past weekend.

There is a lot going on in the background and it was a cloudy day, so my immediate feeling is to crop it and boost the colors a bit.

Using the Picnik crop tool, here is the cropped version…

…and a boost to the coloration using the “cross process” effect:

Then a slight glow/haze using the “Orton-ish” effect:

Picked up some more color using the “Vibrance” effect…then “erasing back” (brush tool) to the original image to pick/choose areas to be affected by this effect (that is A BIG HINT when using ALL Picnik effects!)

Now, I use the “burn” tool (brush) in the “Touch Up Suite” to darken areas that need I don’t want to be as bright — mostly around the edges:

Next I use the “vignette” effect to create a subtle dim-ness around the entire edge of the photo:

Reduce the saturation a bit…

Add some the “rounded corners frame” because it makes the photo softer to look at:

Finally…use the “stickers” to add a few autumn leaves, if you’d like:

Here is the BEFORE and AFTER:

(Click image to see larger)

So as you can see, Picnik is a great way to make a few adjustments in a little bit of time to make your photos a little more blog-friendly.

HOW TO WIN:

Leave me a comment on this post and tell me what you currently use to edit your photos and you’ll be entered in a drawing to WIN 3 MONTHS of a
PREMIUM Picnik Subscription!

One winner will be drawn at random on Tuesday October 6th (NOON EST). Winner be given an activation-code for 3 months of the Premium Version of Picnik. The Premium version includes PREMIUM tools to help make your photos look even better!

Want some extra chances?
<-- Tweet about this giveaway by clicking on the Twitter logo (up to 3 times per day and don't forget to leave a comment each time you tweet!)

Good Luck and look for some more ways to use Picnik in your blog coming soon!

Tamara said “I am in love with Picnik THANKS TO YOU!!!! I edit all of our photos with this program and tell anybody with ears how great it is. I would LOVE LOVE LOVVVVEEE to win this premium subscription!”

Well, you did thanks to your tweet!

Congratulations Tamara, I’ll be sending you your subscription code shortly.

Look for another Picnik Premium subscription Giveaway later this month :)