Can't afford Photoshop? Why not try Pixlr?

Pixlr was one of those free apps I stumbled upon when the situation called for it. Working the odd shoot/project as an event photographer and graphic designer, I had a client request I touch-up a potrait.

I realized my subscription to Photoshop had expired, and since this was only a part time venture, I didn’t want to spend the cash on a monthly subscription -- or worse, go and pirate the software and risk wasting time for something I maybe only needed once.

A quick Google search led me to Pixlr: created in Sweden in 2008, Pixlr is a powerful cloud based software that provides some of the best online photo editing software available for PC, tablets & mobile devices.

Whether it’s a quick exposure touch up this photo editor is a powerful tool, and best of all it’s free to use!

Not only that, but if you’re familiar with photoshop, you’ll have no problem at all navigating as most of the key commands and the entire layout (including the icons) are extremely similar.

Pixlr has almost everything you could want including wand, smudging and blurring tools as well as layering functions. It also has a history of all the changes you make to a photo, meaning you can go back in your project, and revert any changes you have made.

You can also save your project as a PXD file (Pixlr’s own layered file-type) if for any reason you can’t finish up your project in one go.

With Google Drive integration, it’s easy to share your projects with friends or clients.

If you find yourself using it often, Pixlr offers a monthly subscription for their “Pixlr Pro” editor, that offers access to more powerful tools, a large library of stock images, templates and premium fonts for next to nothing. Pixlr desktop (which is free to use) also allows for exporting higher resolution photos. Give it a shot!

-- article by: Linda Wu