There is so much concern and “Buzz” about Google shutting down the Picnik.com site, so I decided to provide you with some alternative tools for editing and customizing your graphics, photos, and images. While Picnik.com will be shutting down in April 2012, here are some other options you have available immediately and for FREE.
FotoFlexer – Create some dazzling photo and image effects in your browser for FREE. Use Animations, resizing, coloring, contrast and more. Take a look at These 5 Demo’s for a quick tour of what FotoFlexer has to offer, you’ll love some of these cool features. Smart Scissor is a favorite feature.
Pixlr – and for Picnik users, try Pixlr Express. You’ll love the Editor, the Pixlr-o-matic, the Pixlr Grabber for Firefox and Chrome browsers, and the Pixlr Imm.io hosting, all of which are very robust and user friendly cool features.
LunaPic – This site will rock your world! Lunapic offers more choices and options for photo editing and custom effects than some of the paid software applications I’ve purchased and used in the past. Use vignettes, color bars, animated imaging, picture frames, retro color, collages, custom text, reflection animations, slide shows, and a ton more. One of the most feature rich FREE online editors available. You’re gonna love this site.
FreeOnlinePhotoEditor – A really simple and easy to use photo and image editor for those “quick fix and gotta go” graphics. Very basic but simple and fast. Some of the other online photo and image tools include: OnlinePhotoTool.com: Online photo editor, Automatically resize your images when sending it by email, Create an Image from your RSS feed, Create Image from your Tweet and Twitter account, and Create, save and email screenshots.
BeFunky - Be Funky lets you do some pretty amazing things with your photos and graphics. Most of the features and tools are focused on creating cool, fun, and funky effects and artwork. The site’s name says it. Some of the effects available would take hours to create in Photoshop or other high end and costly photo/image editors.
Definitely worthy of a visit and tour.
Photoshop.com – That’s right, you can use Photoshop online and for FREE. You’ll need to register, but I promise it will be worth it. The Photoshop tools are powerful and very easy to use. Be prepared to spend a little time here, you’ll be amazed at what they have to offer and allow you to do online for free. I’m not going to lie, this is one of my favorites and my personal replacement for Picnik.com closing down.
GIMP – GIMP is very similar to Adobe Photoshop except that GIMP is FREE. It does require you to download the software but one huge benefit to that is it will never be bought and shut down on you. It is a very powerful and feature intense program so unless you’re really experienced with editing and graphic design, or you have more time than it takes to close a short sale, you may want to stick with one of the others.
I personally like to use GIMP for graphic design more than image or photo editing.
Combine all these together and you’ll have more FREE editing tools and features than you’ll ever need or use and absolutely FREE. Take a few moments to review each site, bookmark them, then give each one a try to see which one(s) best meet your photo and image editing needs. Enjoy! 
Brad, I was so bummed out yesterday when I logged into my account on Picnik & found out it was going away…i wrote a blog post on it too! You have picked my spirits up because my pictures meld so readily into my real estate profession and my stomping ground of RI…thanks for this great share & ALL that you share with all of us!
Ginny Lacey Gorman
North Kingstown Real Estate Agent
Hi Ginny – as a Premium paying member, I too pouted for a bit then decided to be part of the solution or to at least try and help those I know who were feeling the same way. I think you’ll really like these sites and you may even find (as I did) that there are some even BETTER or at least comparable sites and options available out there. Thanks.
Brad,
You’ve come to the rescue though I’m not surprised. I’m going to be spending some time playing.
Thanks,
Brad: If you just need to resize or change the resolution of a photo, take a look at http://www.Fotosizer.com (sorry, PC only). You can resize one photo, a batch or a whole file folder, and its fast (and free)! Another one is http://www.FastStone.com.
Also, Google has already installed most of the Picnik photo-editing tools on Google+. Sadly, no collage or frames. Hope springs eternal!
I love GIMP – didn’t think about using it as an alternative… I was spoiled.
Oh well, off to learn something new, right?
Hi Brad! Thanks so much for the information! I think I’ll give LunaPic and Photoshop.com a try to see. I’ve LOVED Picnik and my sellers love the collages that we create with it for our marketing. I will definitely miss being able to do it with my eyes closed! LOL
Onward and upward, I suppose! Thanks again! Hope you’re doing great…time to chat??!!
Thank you so much for this article. I, too, am mourning the loss of the easy to use Picnik.com for my photos from my digital camera. I’m very techy most of the time, but graphics has always been more of a challenge. I’ll have to give these a try! For basic resizing, cropping, and adding text, plus minor tweaks – which would you say is the absolute easiest? Thanks again so much.
Hi Kaye – I think they all are fairly easy but you should take each one for a spin and then see which one(s) works best for you, if you get stuck or need help, just let me know.
Will Picnik be available for those with Google + accounts? Seems like they mentioned that. If not, thanks for providing these alternatives.
Tom – The rumor is that some (not all) of the features from Picnik will be available on Google+ someday.