Here is the email I got tonight: Official Announcement: Picnik is closing Since joining Google in 2010, we have been creating editing magic in Google products while continuing to keep Picnik awesome. But now we get to focus on even awesomer things. Picnik will be closing on April 19, 2012. Your photos liberated Amazing photos are created in Picnik, so we have launched a new feature, Picnik Takeout,that easily downloads your photos to your desktop in convenient zip files. You may also elect to copy your photos to Google+ where you can store and share your creations. You may request your photos at any time and use this handy tool as many times as you like until our closing date of April 19, 2012. Learn more. Premium Refunds To our primo Picnik Premium members, we'll begin processing a full refund of your current membership fee within a week of this announcement. By "in full" we mean the whole darn thing. Yep, this means even if you are on your very last day of an annual membership, we will refund you the entire $24.95. Just because we want to say thanks. Now the Good News - Free Premium for ALL! To express our gratitude for your support over the past 5 years, Picnik Premium is free for everyone! Use Picnik in all of its premium glory, for free, from now until our actual closing day. Touch-up, Textures, Advanced, and more are all free for you to use! We have been incredibly proud of building a product that is used and beloved by so many of you. We continue to be amazed and humbled by the photos you create and we are immensely grateful for all of your support, creativity, and passion. We are excited by the photo-editing fun we have already brought to Google products, like Google+, where you can find many of your favorite Picnik effects in Creative Kit. We encourage you to visit Google+ and give it a whirl. Please visit the Help Hub for more information on our wind down, and check the Picnik blog for updated information on our April closure. It's been awesome, Team Picnik This has me bummed out. I love their vibrance setting. I can only hope it gets integrated into Picasa. Another Incredible poster!
I just read it. Bummer! ; I liked the interface and ease of use. It's not bad through G+ and I'll have to get used to using it their. There are other online editors or you can learn to use Gimp, Dennis' fav. Sent from my fabulous iPhone 4
I have tried using Gimp, but as it is similar to Photoshop, I have a hard time getting to know the controls and what they do. ; I really need to just decide on one platform and learn it.
if you want free, i have been using faststone image viewer. ; it can display raw files without any add-ons or plugins, has an organizer function, tagging, and can pop an image into any other program just by pressing E. faststone.org
Jeff, If you use a PC, I would agree with Gary and look into LightRoom. ; LR can do most of what you would ever want and there are a lot of books, websites, tutorials and free presets. Download the free trial and give it a whirl. If a Mac, Aperture is a bargain at only $80 from the App Store. I do all my processing with Aperture and supplement it with plugins for HDR, noise reduction, lens adjustments and tagging photos. ; In my opinion (I know others will disagree), LR and Aperture is the way to go for a total digital workflow from import, management, processing and output.
Thanks, I am hoping to eventually be able to use Aperture, but until I own a Mac, I am stuck with the PC alternatives.
