I love pictures. It makes sense; my father is a photographer, so I had access to cameras from early on, and my current setup is a Nikon D70 and a Canon SD1000. One big, one tiny. I use flickr to store and share my photos, and use shutterfly to print them. I often have prints shipped to me, and then choose the cream of the crop and send them to my grandmother in Texas, or my sister in Colorado. If my house burns down, I will not pine for the photos of my daughter — they are safely stored in two different locations, online.

One of the best things to happen to photography — especially for frugal folks like myself — is the free photo editor found at Picnik.com. You can add text, adjust colors, add special effects, all online, all free. It integrates seamlessly with flickr.com, Facebook, Picasa Albums, and other photo services. It’s great.

This year, when it came time to design our annual New Year’s card, I was unimpressed with the offering at Shutterfly. Other services were very expensive. All I wanted was a nice, simple, 5×7 flat card with our family photo on it. Enter Picnik.

I uploaded the photo to flickr, and went to Picnik to edit it. I adjusted the contrast, added a border, and added my own text. By making each word its own text box, I was able to adjust the size and float it the way I wanted it to look. I saved it back to flickr (being sure to ’save a new copy,’ as the default is to replace the photo you’ve just edited) and then decided to try flickr’s print services. I ordered a proof to be sent to my local Target (just 1.49, but only available in glossy, which is not my preference), picked it up the same day, and then went home and ordered the rest via flickr’s print services, for just .59 per photo — 40 cents less than Shutterfly, and $1.40 less than the designer cards. Even better — I could order just what I needed, and not be restricted to sets of 25. I’ll have to pick up some envelopes, but I already have some left from last year’s unused cards.

That’s just one way to use Picnik. Have a photo of a class presentation that you’d like to use, but you need to mask out a child that has forbidden photos? Picnik will let you cover him over, easily. Need to resize a photo for an avatar, and you don’t want it squished? Picnik will do that.

And, for just $25 a year, you can access Picnik Premium, which gives you no ads, more options, and additional tools, including curves!

Picnik