Once upon a time, I almost felt as if using photo editing software was cheating. My concern was most likely because of stories of amazing pictures that were photoshopped and not a true representation. After reading about Ansel Adams and his skill in the dark room, it occurred to me that photo editing software is just the modern version of the dark room from days gone by. So, I slowly began to use free photo editing software available online.
At the time, a number of people on Active Rain really liked Picnik which was acquired by Google and then shut down in April 2012. Since I am a creature of habit, I gravitated towards PicMonkey - which is VERY similar to Picnik. Google took some of the best features in Picnik and incorporated them into iPiccy.
Bottom Line Up Front: I've spent the last two weeks, playing around with both programs. IPiccy has more features yet it isn't as easy to use as PicMonkey. If you are a beginner with photo editing software - go with PicMonkey. It is easier to figure out. If you have a lot of experience with photo editing software -you will most likely iPiccy better. iPiccy also provides some great photography tips at the top of their web page. iPiccy has a lot more features and options available. Unfortunately, it has been challenging figuring out how to work all of the options that are available.
Both programs are free and they are both far superior to Microsoft's photo editing software.
What program are you using?
Me.... I'm still at PicMonkey level. I primarily use photo editing software to crop the picture. In doing so, I can emphasize what I want the view to see.
The "best" pictures don't need much more than cropping. PicMonkey's crop feature wasn't as sensitive, so I could crop the picture faster. iPiccy's crop feature would sometimes get confused when I made a mistake and the selection box would shrink so small that I would have to cancel the crop and start over.
Original - Garden of the God's near the Balancing Rock, Colorado Springs
Picture 1
For my experiments, I cropped the picture. I let the program automatically fix my picture. I added a border. I added my name. Picture one was edited with iPiccy. It came out alright. The outside border didn't have as many color combinations that I could easily find as PicMonkey did.
The Polaroid effect that I have used on some of my localism posts about restaurants was a border. The photo frame feature is a type of border.
iPiccy had more free text style choices than PicMonkey. PickMonkey had a lot of choices but many were available only with an upgraded account. It found iPiccy a little bit easier to work with when adding text.
picture 2
This photo was edited using PicMonkey. I was better able to control the crop feature. I had more control over the color of the outside border but you can't really tell the difference here aside from the fact the photograph colors seem a bit more vivid. (Shade of black can have a blue tint, green tint, red tint....which in turn causes different colors in the photograph to stand out.)
picture 3
I've cropped a HUGE pile of horse poop out of this picture so I have opted to not include the before picture of this horse shed.
For this experiment, I wanted to see how the colors, texture, dust, wood and light shining in beneath the door would look using the auto fix feature of both programs.
The first is iPiccy.
picture 4
I decided that PicMonkey's auto fix feature did a better job of making the picture look like it did in real life. This mare is bleached out so her coat is more of a chocolatey look rather than pure black. Plus, she has a winter coat rather than a smooth shiny coat. Once again, I was better able to control the colors in the borders. (These picture are of an Egyptian Arabian mare that I call Black Beauty. I can't ever remember her registered name. I was able to adopt her for free last summer due to an old injury. Even though she probably won't ever be sound to ride, she is extremely athletic and a great pet.)
Notice, the outside border is a dark green. I was unable to get that shade with iPiccy yet with PicMonkey it was a choice that I just had to click. With both programs, I was able to round the corners.
Both photo editing programs can be used for much, much more. For example, you can adjust exposure (darkness, highlights, contrast); color tones, fix sharpness, edit, apply various effects - such as black and white, old time effects, and many others. You can add borders or frames. With iPiccy you can add textures. You can add the text boxes.
I wonder if there are features available that I haven't even discovered yet?
Best of luck in your photography journey.
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