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June 17, 2009

3 Free Ways to Edit Images Online

3 Free Ways to Edit Images Online

Jennifer Van Grove

Associate Editor, Mashable

Summary

Most professionals have a need to edit images at some point in their day to day work life, but it's simply not always feasible for small bus

 Most professionals have a need to edit images at some point in their day to day work life, but it's simply not always feasible for small businesses to shell out the money it takes to buy image editing software and train employees.

Thankfully, whether it's for fine-tuning a presentation, creating marketing materials, tweaking images for blog posts, or just general use, business users can now turn to the web to accomplish all of these image editing tasks completely free of charge. So if you're looking to make minor, medium, or professional edits, you can leverage these free online methods to edit your images to your liking.

1. Make Minor Tweaks

Sometimes all you need to do is tweak a single element or two of an image to make it work perfectly for your professional needs. 

When it comes to rounding edges, a simple little tool called RoundPic could be a huge time saver. Simply upload your image or specify an image URL, and click to round it. You can then download the final product and be on your merry way. Should you need a few more features, you can also adjust the size, add a shadow or border, and save as html.

In the same light is Web Resizer, a super simple and lightweight image editing tool just for resizing, cropping, and optimizing photos.

2. Use Anyone-Can-Edit Tools

If all you need is a few quick fixes to spruce up your company’s image assets for presentations, blog posts, or web content, then you’ve got a lot of solid options to choose from.

If usability is key, then Picnik is an excellent choice for online image editing. It’s also the image editor for all Flickr images, and it can pull in most of your photos from across the web – Facebook, MySpace, Photobucket and the like. If your business has tapped into the social web for image hosting and posting, Picnik is a no-brainer photo enhancing utility.

A free Picnik account includes editing features, sans the complications of Photoshop-like tools, for correcting exposure, adjusting colors, sharpening images, fixing red-eye, resizing, and rotation. You can also add some basic effects and frames, but the really good stuff will cost you $24.95 a year.

Dr.Pic doesn’t have the same fluid interface as Picnik, or support social site photo import, but it is a completely free utility with a variety of editing tools that anyone can use. You can resize, crop, rotate, adjust brightness, auto-fix, sharpen, add text, and apply a few effects. When you’re done, just opt to save the creation to your desktop or to the web.

3. Try Advanced Online Editing Options

The web is also a great place to find and use sophisticated online editing tools that are on par with the likes of Adobe’s software giant Photoshop, which we should note also offers a free online express version.

Splashup is a beautiful online image editor that brings the sophistication of Photoshop to the web. Since it mirrors Photoshop functionalities with multiple image editing, pixel-level control, layers, filters, and other advanced options, it’s a viable alternative that better fits your budget (it’s free).

Another great free option for more advanced image editing is FotoFlexer. This advanced online image editor supports animation, smart scissors for isolating only the content you want, resizing, smart recoloring, distortion, and image layering.