A while ago we had a contest on Facebook that involved photo manipulation.  Turned out, we had a lot of people amazed by some of the basic submissions.

It’s no secret that I love to play around with images, whether it’s creating logos, editing and color correcting photos, or just pretending I’m a graphic designer.  The true secret is that you don’t have to have a degree and you don’t even have to open your wallet to becoming your own photo editor.

A recent article came out in the New York Times about how easy it has become to do your own photo editing online.  They list multiple sites and applications, but I found I’ve only ever needed two in my life, and they are much easier than you may think.

There are free online photo editing sites that allow you to manipulate, edit, or create images online.  Moving away from the basic functions of Paint, which comes standard on any PC, my first favorite photo editing application is Pixlr.com.  It’s pretty much like a free, basic Photoshop where you can create a new image, use own of your own, or use one from a URL to adjust and filter.  I have it saved as a favorite because you never know when a client needs something resized or touched-up.   And the best part about this site is that you don’t even have to register which makes it very quick and easy.

I also purchased an actual application for my Mac called CameraBag.  This allows me to change my photo’s coloring and allows me to have more fun with my images making an everyday photo look vintage or professionally enhanced.  You can also add more than one filter and create different border looks.  This app costs about $20, but for someone like me who loves to not only take photos, but make them look cool too, it’s definitely worth it.

Using only these two applications, I took a picture of our Arment Dietrich four-legged friend and played around with it to show you how much fun you can have online in less than 10 minutes!  Gini Dietrich also likes it because we save money for our clients and our proposals look goooood.

How are you using some of these apps for photos?