There are a million and one reasons why meeting and event planners need to edit photos.
Sometimes it is to put an image on a website, upload it to Twitter, drop it on Facebook, or get it ready for the event prospectus, conference program or whatever you are calling that printed crap this month.
Like I said, ask an event planner why they need to edit, and you will get a slightly different answer every time, but the fact remains, stuff needs to get cropped and resized, colors need changing and artistic effects need to happen, and sometimes you are all alone.
But what do you do?
Many planners outsource to their designer, which can be expensive; some use Adobe Photoshop CS5 or Adobe Photoshop Elements, and some would use Microsoft’s or Apple’s built-in photo editors, but you may not always have access to your programs, your designer might be off to Bora Bora, or you are at an event, and photos need artistic cropping NOW!
This is where online services come in handy.
You should check out these five online photo editing programs BEFORE you need something on the fly; you should get an account for each and give them a test run because no matter what anyone says, most of the time, it is not a question of what online service is better, it is a question of which feels more comfortable to the user.
I am partial to Picnik, which is why it is first on the list, but Picnik might not be your cup of tea. Give them a spin and check them all out; it can’t hurt and takes mere minutes.
Picnik is super simple and fulfills basic editing needs like resizing and cropping. Picnik can also handle minor color adjustments.
In need of a little art? Picnik allows you to get a little funky and creative with your images by adding effects, creating collages and more.
One of the great things about Picnik is that you can grab the images from your hard drive, Flickr, PhotoBucket, Picassa, or Facebook… you can’t beat that (although most now allow this).
Also of note is that Google owns Picnik, so you know they have clout behind them, which should comfort some folks when uploading their images.
Some people have the big desktop version of Photoshop, but Adobe also offers a stripped-down, free version that allows you to resize, crop, adjust color, touch up, and more.
Online Photoshop offers many of the same powerful photo editing tools included in the desktop version, just scaled down for fast, quick editing.
Aviary
I will not claim to know Aviary; I am just throwing it out because others I know are using it and loving it.
Again, much of the same stuff you will find in other editors. You can edit images, crop and resize as well as import images from various sources like your hard drive, Facebook, Flickr and PhotoBucket.
Pixlr is the online Photo Editor that I am very excited about because of a few things.
They have a Firefox (and Chrome) addon to make grabbing images a breeze, they have an App for iPhone and iPad, and they have cool tools that allow you to turn photos into something artsy in easy steps.
There you have it, now go forth and become a ROCKSTAR!
