In a previous post I talked about using Picnik as a way to create a custom header and background for your ActiveRain blog. This is a great use for Picnik, and really makes your blog stand out. However, there are many other uses for the site.
Adding images and photos to your blog posts makes them easier to read, more appealing to the reader, and can even help to illustrate a point or give an example of something.
If you're currently using images in your blog posts you may be finding them online or taking them from your computer, then putting them into a photo editing program such as Adobe Photoshop. If you're not using images in your blog posts it may be because you're not sure how to, don't have a good program to edit images, or just haven't thought about it.
Well, Picnik makes it easy to take a photo you found or have and add rounded corners, a drop shadow, border, make it black and white, and much more! It's all FREE and very easy to use.
For an easy to follow video tutorial on using Picnik check out my previous post on it.
What that other post does not cover though is the Firefox plugin that allows you to instantly take a photo you're viewing on a website and import it into Picnik with a single click.
Once you install the plugin you can simply right click any image on a website and select "Edit in Picnik".
Not only does this plugin allow you to edit images on a website, you can also take a screenshot of that website! So if you're writing about a website, blog, etc, you can now have a screenshot of that site instantly created using Picnik. You can then take that screenshot and crop it to the exact part of the site you wanted to add to your blog post.
Here's a quick screenshot I did in less than a minute of the plugin page for the Picnik plugin:
Adding screenshots when you're talking about a site or product really adds to your blog posts. It helps illustrate a point, give an example, or simply show what a site looks like without your readers having to click a link.
Oh, and if you're on the fence about switching to Firefox, check out this post by Brad Andersohn: Internet Explorer vs Mozilla Firefox The Mythunderstanding
* All of the above images and screenshots were created using Picnik and the Picnik plugin on Firefox.
Thank you James for such wonderful information and tools I will have to try it
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