Let’s face it – not everyone wants or even needs the power of Photoshop. <Gasp> What?!?! Did he actually say that? Well, yes I did – I’m just being realistic. Photoshop is fairly expensive, quite system resource intensive, and has one heckuva steep learning curve. I’ve just run across a neat alternative to Photoshop – pixlr.com.
Screen Capture From Pixlr.com
You might wonder why I (as a 10 year professional Photoshop user) would look for a Photoshop alternative? Sometimes (particularly as an online journalist) I need quick, simple image editing capabilities. I don’t always have access to one of my machines loaded up with Photoshop CS5 – and in many cases, I don’t need that much horsepower. If I’m just doing some quick cropping, re-sizing, or combining of images (as I often do when I create posts on my various websites) then I don’t require something with all the bells and whistles of Photoshop.
Basically, Pixlr is an image editing web page, so you can access it anytime you have web access. Pixlr clearly took more than a few notes from Adobe – when you open their online editor, you’ll be greeting with a VERY Photoshop like interface. So if you have any familiarity with Photoshop, you’ll be right at home. Outside of RAW image editing, I’d say I can do about 75-80% of what I do in Photoshop using Pixlr. That’s pretty impressive for a free product that you can access so easily. They even have an “Express” version for those who want something a bit more basic and less intimidating than the Photoshop-like interface.
What’s really nifty is the Firefox Pixl Grabber browser plug in which makes the Pixlr image editing products more seamlessly integrate into the Firefox browser. It’s GREAT for doing screen grabs!
Check it out!
John B. Holbrook, II is a freelance writer, photographer, and author of ThruMyLens.org, as well as LuxuryTyme.com and TheSeamasterReferencePage.com.
*All text and images contained in this web site are the original work of the author, John B. Holbrook, II and are copyright protected. Use of any of the information or images without the permission of the author is prohibited.
Thanks, John. It looks as though Pixlr.com will be useful for quick fixes, etc., so I have it bookmarked.
Well, that’s just too cool, and very PS-like.