If you own a computer, likelihood is you’ve used Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, Corel Draw, GIMP, or a comparable program to some extent. Aside from GIMP, each of these design and editing programs cost a reasonable amount of money. Even when you do purchase the full package, it’s likely only on one of your computers, and there are probably times you wish you had it even to do a quick editing job.

Enter Picnik.com, “photo editing awesomeness, online, in your browser. It’s the easiest way on the Web to fix underexposed photos, remove red-eyes, or apply effects to your photos.”¨ While that comes from their website’s FAQ page, as an avid photographer I can definitely attest to the “awesomeness” that Picnik offers to a broad range of people. Not only can you fix photographs gone awry, but there are many cool effects, filters, and add-ons to play around with.

Let’s start with the basics. First, you get to choose the image you wish to edit. Either upload it from your computer, take it from your Flickr / Photobucket / Picasa photostream, Facebook photos, live from your webcam, or one of eight other options (you can also save the finished product on any of these). Once you choose the picture, you’ll be taken to the Edit tab. There lies the ability to edit the image by Autofix, Rotate, Crop, Resize, Exposure (and contrast), Colors (saturation and temperature), Sharpen, or fixing Red-eye. Each option allows you at least two different ways to adjust the quality of the photo to your liking.

The Create tab is where all the fun is, though. Choose from a variety of eye-catching Effects, add Text (including many interesting fonts) or “Stickers,” do a Touch-up, add a Frame, or play around in the Sandbox or with some Advanced features. The options are seemingly endless, and you will find yourself playing around with all of the settings – all of which are easily just as good, and perhaps even easier to use than traditional graphics editing programs.

All of the interesting effects and functions available under Create are quite a bit to list, so we’ll review some of the more unique features. With one simple click, you can make your photograph replicate the effects of some very unique, and expensive, cameras and lenses. Choose from Lomo-ish, Holga-ish, HDR-ish, and Orton-ish. Lomo-ish creates a unique colorful, but blurry image, reminiscent of traditional Lomography. Holga-ish expresses elements of vignetting, blurriness, and light leakage. HDR-ish, similar to the famous high dynamic range photography, enhances photographs by displaying the contrast between areas of different lighting. Orton-ish gives you the emphasis of varying high and low detail areas within the same photo. There’s also the ability to turn your modern photograph into one that looks like it came straight out of a family photo album from the 60s, rounded corners and all, in addition to a unique feature that allows the “Zombifying” of certain parts of the photo (i.e. that relative you can’t stand).

The Touch-up section is new, and offers some of the basic effects that magazine photographers will use to brush up an image of, say, a model. You, too, can be picture perfect. Fix blemishes, shine, wrinkles; airbrush those pesky areas, or just do a quick-click “Insta-thin”; add makeup, whiten teeth, brighten your eyes, or just change their color entirely. There’s also a tool that enables cloning, in addition to many others… but I’ll leave it up to you to explore and have some fun.

So, what’s the catch? It’s free to sign-up and use the basic functions. Premium membership allows access to all features (and is one I’ve renewed for three years already), and is available at a fairly nominal fee. The customer support is relatively quick to respond and maintains a perfect level of approachability and professionalism. They really value their members, and even feature them on their homepage (although I have yet to be featured). Over the last three years, I’ve spent about seventy dollars on my Picnik membership. That’s still a fraction of the cost of Adobe’s Photoshop, and allows me to use it from any computer with Internet, at my convenience. If you’re a graphic designer, this is definitely not the program to use to do your work – but as a photographer, it allows the freedom and creativity that we all secretly seek.

Below are some of the photographs (before Picnik and after Picnik) that I’ve transformed from delete-worthy to pretty interesting shots. As a final note, please take into consideration that all photos were taken with a Nikon Coolpix point-and-shoot camera … and no, I have no business or personal connection to Picnik or its employees, I just love using the service.