Photo Editing Made Easy - PicMonkey.com

Up until recently, I thought Picnik was the easiest online photo editor to use. However, Google bought it and decided to shut it down as of April 19th. I've been looking for a viable alternative and finally found it at PicMonkey.com.

PicMonkey is a free web-based photo editor that you can use without signing up. Once you upload your photo, it keeps things simple by showing the "Basic Edits" which are the seven tools you will most likely need to use.

• Auto Adjust
• Crop
• Rotate
• Exposure
• Colors
• Sharpen
• Resize

PicMonkey has many more features if you click one of the gray icons to the left of the tool list. The "Touch Up" tools let you fix blemishes, erase wrinkles, add blush or spray on a tan with a click.

Even if all it had was the easy to use crop and resize tools, I'd be very happy with PicMonkey. I can't believe how hard it was to find a program that did these two functions easily and well. PicMonkey does everything I want an online picture editor to do and more!

Resize Images

Before you post images to Blackboard or your website, it's a good idea to resize them first. Most cameras take pictures at a resolution that is higher than what is needed for the web. This can result in file and image sizes that are unnecessarily large, making it difficult for students with slower connections to view your resources.

Microsoft has a free tool for Windows XP users to resize pictures.