Minnesota, USA March 30, 2011- Basic photo editing became a common skill among people after the digital camera was introduced; Social networking sites such as Myspace and Facebook increased the use as photo editing as people love to customize or transform photos to add a special touch. Not all of us can afford the expensive Adobe Photoshop, so a large amount of people are turning to online editing sites to do the basics. Based on popularity, you may already know about PicNik; for this reason, we are introducing LunaPic, which is similar to PicNik except it does not run using add-ons.

 

What makes LunaPic the most attractive is the fact that it is FREE. It is hard to be too critical of a tool that helps us recreate our memories in a more favorable light. There is no risk involved in trying it, which pushed me more to give it a full exploration.

 

 

LunaPic requires basically nothing for you to use: no sign-up or installation. This site allows the basic internet user to access its site and transform photos with a large selection of tools. Photos can either be edited by uploading or inserting the URL of a photo that is already online. Obviously LunaPic wants to make everything easier and by eliminating these extra steps it meets its own goals.

Even at first glance it is apparent that LunaPic features an extensive amount of tools; it has the basics such as cropping and color correcting along with more interesting tools such as animation and fun effects. It even has a tool to correct cosmetic blemishes; the tool can eliminate any small blemish. However, if there is a part of you or the photo that you really do not like, there is a cosmetic surgery tool that can either increase or reduce size of any selected features. It could simply be entertaining to just transform images and wait for feedback from others. Perhaps this is an easy way to get cosmetic surgery without the high cost- joke!

LunaPic has its share of highs and lows. The excessive amount of advertising was distracting; images do not only appear on the side and top of the window but also within the actual 'editing' area. However, the site needs to keep running somehow, so it makes sense that there would be advertising. It is hard to be critical in this when its services are free.

Trying out tools was easy since it features thumbnails where the user can go back to any version of the photo and do something differently. However, I discovered that sometimes after the image was already saved previously, it may not recognize the changes and keep saving the image just as it was saved before. I suppose this means that people need to make sure to check the image prior to closing out of the site- a glitch that might be fixed at some point in time.

LunaPic is definitely amazing for anyone of the creative crowd. It may take some exploring to see exactly how every individual tool can transform the way each photo looks, but it is worth it. The site even offers 'tutorials' where members are able to interact with each other and help each other do more than the basic functions. There is really no way to lose when you are not paying anything for it.