Online Photo Editing

Part One

Original

Pixenate.com Edit

Picture2life.com Edit

This is a digital image taken with an iPhone 6s of the Downtown/Vista area of Columbia, SC. With both online editors I cropped out bottom cars and the top redlight arm. With Pixenate, I modified the image smoothness and balanced the color. With Picture2Life, I cropped then applied a Kuwahara painting filter (I had to Google it and found a Wikipedia link – I know, not the most scholarly site but provides a good overview!).

Part Two
Comparison of the Two Selected Online Editors
–Some of the criteria listed below could not be easily found on either online editor site

Narrative
This was the first time I had used online photo editors – I am now sold! I often edit pictures for work or for various snaps I take, but only edit in the most basic of ways. One thing that always is a challenge as a Windows user is how clunky some of the default photo editors for Windows actually are. I often have a hard time opening a program and resizing. I chose to use Pixenate and Picture2Life. With both, I cropped a skyline view of the City of Columbia that I took from the West Columbia side view of the Vista and Downtown. Both editors were easy to use, edit, and download images. Pixenate is very simplistic and has a good variety, but limited features in comparison to Picture2Life. P2L has a more “glossy” GUI, a lot more features, while it is easy to use it took longer to read through features and purposes. Both were definitely easier to use than gimp/photoshop for basic edits. Both seemed to have 3 easy steps – upload, edit, print/save (download immediately). P2L gives you an option to save to an online account. Most definitely I can see P2L being used for hobby photography editing and for easy cropping/resizing for work image manipulation.

With Pixenate, I applied the Smooth Photo tool and Improve Color balance tools, then resized to 100×48. Pixenate was extremely easy to use with three easy steps (upload, edit, publish). The site then provides the option to turn your image into a gift, save it to a disk as a .jpg, or upload it to Flickr. Pixenate, in addition to its online version, has a software package that can be downloaded and embedded into a website for large photo galleries. There were minimal ads. Most importantly, it had a low learning curve – no training needed! The system interface was a little simplistic and dated, but everything was super easy to understand and use.

Picture2Life (P2L) was definitely more advanced and more robust of an online editor. I cropped then applied a painting filter. With more features, there was more of a learning curve. It was fairly easy to use, but I felt I had to read more explanations of its various tools and features. One really super cool feature was how the system applied a thumbnail preview of my image to the various tools and features – so you can see what the effect was before actually applying it. This site also had a really nice help center. Not only did the site contain the basic editor, but it had several other different options available (for instance, an online collage builder). The home page was very modern and visually appealing.