Editing Photos Using a Web-Based Application

The photos on the right are a before (left) and after (right) of a photo I took while at the Guggenheim in NYC earlier this year and after I edited it using Picutre2Life. Picture2Life is a free, web-based photo-editing tool that provides editing, collaging and automation (Slide Show) features to account and non-account users. The following adjustments were made to the picture on the left to result in the image on the right:

1. Crop
2. Paint Effect
3. Sharpen Effect
4. Saturation Effect
5. Save to Desktop

Below is an evalutation of Picture2Life that I completed using guiding questions provided by Dr. Robin:

1. What is the name and web address of the program you are evaluating?
• Picture2Life
• http://www.picture2life.com/

2. Which editing features did you use?
• Quick Fixes
- Shadow
- Sketch
- Oil Paint
- Kuwahara
- Edge (SharkTooth)
- Edge (Rugged)
• One Clicks
- Water
- Swirl
- Color
- Texture
• All
- Border
- Brightness
- Crop
- Hue
- Save
• Collage
- Picture Pile
- Grids
• Animation
- Customize

3. Did the program perform as expected?

The program actually exceeded my expectations.

Overall Picture2Life is very simple and intuitive to use. I was able to easily navigate through the various effects and liked the fact that you could apply and then remove the effects simply by clicking the back button or remove.

Another great aspect of the program is that you are able to see the individual effect before choosing it for your photo. Each effect is previewed in the effect menu. So I didn’t have to guess what the effect would look like.The program allows you to select and save favorite effects, customize effects (by layering them) and save them for your next editing project. This functionality requires a user account.

The Collage feature was very nice. It has 27 different variations users can apply to a grouping of photos that they select out of their uploaded gallery.

The Automation tool (or as Slide Show in most programs) is simple but useful. Users can decide how many times and the size of photos as they loop.

4. Was the program easy to use?

Very easy.

Obviously the robustness of a program like Photoshop is not present but everything a person would need for regular photo editing is made available. A couple of things that were missing were Autofix and Red Eye reduction.

5. Did you experience any problems using the program?

When looking for the Autofix I found Sharpen and used this feature. Then backed the change out. When I tried to use it again over another layer, it wouldn’t work. I wasn't able to recreate the problem.

6. Would you use this program again and/or would you recommend this pr program to others?

Definitely. Free, easy to use, with a lot of editing features as well as the ability to collage and animate – why not?

7. Do you have any other comments you think would be helpful?

The program doesn’t require an account – but it is useful if you are going to want to set up favorites or customized effects.

The site allows you to save your edited photo to its server or to sites such as flickr, Facebook or 23. As well you can download the edited photo.

Picture2Life allows users to customize colors and textures as well as add text to photos.