picnik time

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I took this photo of a display at SciWorks in Winston-Salem, NC a couple of years ago.  I think I was planning on blogging about the trip way back when, but never got around to it.  At any rate, it is a fabulous science museum to visit if you are in the area.  But, that's not what this post is about today.

Acquainted with picnik?  If not, then you should be.  Especially if you use a digital camera.  I found picnik about a year or two ago, I guess.  A friend of mine introduced us and we've been best web buddies ever since.  In case you haven't heard of it, picnik is a web-based mostly free photo editing service.  Like most other free sites, there is an option to register for $2 and change a month, but I have yet to do so.  Not that I wouldn't LOVE a subscription.  I just haven't been able to convince my husband that it is necessary.

With picnik, you can do simple things such as changing the configuration of your photograph (sideways?  fix it here.)  Need more light?  More contrast?  Of course, you can do that, too.  The user interface is super-friendly, so it has less of a learning curve than a program like photoshop or gimp.

However, my favorite things are under the "create" tab.  I love the orton effect, as well as the 1960's one.  I have so much fun playing with my photos, as you can certainly tell from the pictures on my blog.  Take a look at what I did with the above picture.  With all of these derivatives, I backed up to the original before applying any additional edits. 

Posterize

Heat Map

Neon

Pixelate

Crystallize

Smudge

Hypnotic

Isn't it amazing what you can do with just one photo?  This is why I love picnik so much.  What's even better is that all of these effects were free.  Just edit, save to your computer, and use in any capacity you desire.  I really like the last four and I'm thinking about having prints made of them for my home.