Web-based Photo Editors are online tools available to anyone which can easily modify, resize and edit digital photographs or graphics files, without installing any software on your machine. Many of these services having APIs for enhancement.

You can edit the images by uploading them from your computer or directly importing from your social network space as these editors have several advantages to its desktop counterparts.

In the past year the graph of online image editing is rapid up tremendously because it provides highly flexible free and subscription-based options for users of all levels and it allows you to work on any computer.

After been long working with Photoshop we decided to try some of the finest, free online photo editors. And as a result of that this article features 30 Brilliant Web-based Photo Editors that are capable alternatives to powerful desktop applications like Adobe Photoshop and GIMP.

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Brilliant Web-based Photo Editors

01. Photoshop Express

Photoshop Express is not just Photoshop ported onto web interface but it’s less featured version of photoshop software, because it has been developed for mainstream consumers, not professionals. Photoshop Express is a free tool offered by Adobe and requires registration to use. You get access to the online editing tool and 2 GB of space for photos at a custom URL which you can organize into a public gallery and slideshows.

One of the most innovative features in Photoshop Express is the ability to revert any filter you apply to a photograph. You can do this to a particular filter regardless of whether you’ve made other changes to the photo since applying it. All you have to do is uncheck the particular filter and it will be subtracted from your changes, which are represented in a historical filmstrip with all versions of the photo you have gone through.

Official Link

02. Pixlr

Pixlr is a very basic and simple online image editor which allows you to edit, adjust, filter and manipulate images online. That means that you can upload your images and edit them in your browser. Pixlr is built for non-professionals, the users that have basic editing needs. The sleek, semi transparent palettes and tool bar are arranged in the all-too-familiar fashion of the industries leading photo editing software, Adobe PhotoShop. The layout is both familiar & efficient, and provides many of the tools we’ve come to expect in desktop image editors, but never dreamed were possible in online image editors.

The reason Pixlr is becoming fastly popular as compared to other free online image editing tools is because Pixlr does not ask you to register to start using the online app and the GUI is amazingly simple and smooth. Unlike other online image editor apps based on Adobe Flex, Pixlr takes a very little time to load and the interface is not laggy or choppy. If you are looking for a clean and simple online image editor app then Pixlr is the right choice for you.

Official Link

03. Pixer

Pixer.us is an online photo tool that allows user edit their photo, image or picture. It is a photo editing tool that allows you to do the editing job thru a web browser, and the best part is, it’s free of charge. It is a simple and faster way for user to edit their photo online using only their browser.

Since it’s supported by Ajax, it doesn’t take lots of time to load the photo again and again whenever you do any editing. If anything goes wrong, you can just use the undo function to return to the previous photo condition. Users have to upload photo to Pixer.us by using the load image form. After few seconds the photo will appear on the screen and user can edit it. Pixer.us are giving few options for user to edit their photos as resize, crop, rotate, flip, brightness and contrast, saturation, blur and sharpen and some special effect. Once you’re done editing the photo, you will be able to save the photo in any format you like.

Official Link

04. Splashup

Splashup is a free online photo editor and managing tool that runs on all browsers. This isn’t really a new service, but its features and ease of use make it one of the best. Able to run in just about any regular desktop browser, Splashup packs a surprisingly powerful set of editing tools and some of Splashup’s features include layers, brushes, layer effects, and filters. In fact, it’s like a lite version of Photoshop.

You can open photos stored on your computer, from Flickr, from Facebook, Picassa, or any url you specify. Splashup even has its own file format so you can save your work in progress. The web-based image editor integrates with photo sharing sites like Flickr, Facebook, and Picasa and lets you upload files off your own desktop (or from your webcam) for editing. Files can also be uploaded straight off websites into the editor by inputting the URL directly.

Official Link

05. Sumo Paint

Sumo Paint is designed more for image creation rather than image editing. In other words, it’s a tool for creating art and it’s completely free. Unlike the other photo apps, it’s doesn’t have hooks into social sharing sites like Flickr and Facebook. It has it’s own online gallery, however, so you can see what others are doing with Sumo, and upload some of your own work.

Sumo Paint is different from other online image editing tools not only are there a variety of brushes to choose from, there are settings for size, opacity, scatter, random rotate, and gravity. Sumo also has an ink tool and a pencil tool. For vector-ish work, there are shape tools of various kinds, and a peculiar line type that lets you bend it once after drawing.

Official Link

06. Picnik

Picnik is a great tool for simple and quick edits of any kind of photo, and the thing that I think makes it extremely useful, is the fact that you can send the photos to a crap load of sites, which I think is a major feature, that large programs like photoshop, can’t even do. Picnik allows you to edit things in a variety of ways. You can crop, rotate, resize, edit exposure, edit colors, sharpen, fix red eye, and auto fix. The auto-fix tool is cool, because it will take inconsistencies in the photo, and spruce them up a little big. But all of the other tools are pretty much self explanatory.

On top of just editing photos, it has many other added functionalities. The first thing you can do is save directly to flickr. This is a really neat feature, so if you just need to crop a photo you can crop it with Picnik and then upload it right to flickr. You can send the photos to PhotoBucket, Imageshack, TypePad, Costco Photos, Snapfish, Walmart Photos, SmugMug, Windows Live Spaces, Kodak EasyShare, LiveJournal, Fotolog, Nakama, PictureTrail, Fotopic, and of course Flickr.

Official Link

07. Snipshot

Snipshot is a web service that allows to edit pictures directly from a web location or uploaded from your computer. Take note that the Snipshot is only about editing images and not adding special effects, but still is a great tool that lets you crop, rotate or resize pictures. On top of those 3 basic features there are still adjustments settings in which you can change the brightness, contrast, saturation, hue, and other settings. There are extensions for all of the common web browsers out there to quickly and easily import pictures directly from the web. Additionally, Snipshot offers free API for your own website.

Official Link

08. Aviary Phoenix

Phoenix is Aviary’s flagship image editing application. At first glance it’s not too far away from a simple Photoshop-like editor. Menus are where you would expect them to be and tools are familiar. Beyond that, Aviary’s products shouldn’t be compared to Adobe’s offerings. They are more of a creative outlet than just a tool.

Phoenix seems better suited for basic actions like cropping, levels adjustments and resizing smaller images meant for web publishing. This is to be expected when compared to other products in the space, such as Picnik and Photoshop Express, which all have similar proficiencies. However, that’s not to say that this can’t be changed in near future.

Official Link

09. FlauntR

flauntR is a free online photo editor and effects tool. They claim to have well over 1000 effects including Textures and canvases, surfaces and materials, distortions and lenses, light effects, frames, cutouts, and coloration which can be applied to your images with just one click. You can get images directly from FlickR or your PC. Use the online photo album feature for photo storage, and access your albums online. Share your creations by email, edit pictures online for embedding on your web page and blog. With flauntR you can apply cool digital frames and effects to your photos, for communities like Facebook or MySpace.

Official Link

10. FotoFlexer

FotoFlexer provides new, easy-to-use tools for modifying pictures, using advanced image processing. Fotoflexer is a free product, which is provided to the user through the web. FotoFlexer integrates with popular social networking and digital photo sites like Facebook, MySpace and Flickr to seamlessly edit and return pictures to your online accounts all from the comfort of your browser. Aside from the online integration, FotoFlexer does everything that you’d expect from an online image editor and then some. If you need to do serious image editing, desktop editors like Photoshop, GIMP, or Paint.NET will always be your best bets, but if you want to do some fun, lightweight editing—especially with social sites—FotoFlexer is the nice tool to try.

Official Link

11. Phixr

Phixr is an online photo editor that offers a wealth of image-tweaking tools and loads of options for distributing the finished product. Like other online photo editor, Phixr lets you upload, modify, share and save photos. However, you’re not limited to uploading from your PC: Phixr can also pull photos from your Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa and other accounts. It can save finished photos to those services as well, along with Costco, DropShots, LiveJournal and others.

As for its image-editing tools, Phixr covers all the basics actions like cropping, brightness, sharpen, etc. while offering plenty of nifty advanced effects. Phixr is an interesting tool which does not use Flash. It is completely Ajax based and has got the potential to give the user a complete satisfaction. Still, Phixr is a fun and effective tool, and definitely worth checking out.

Official Link

12. Picture2Life

Picture2Life is a another online image editor. The service allows you to import images from sites like Flickr, MySpace, PhotoBucket and Hi5 and edit them online. Tools include greyscale effects, sepia, watermarking, flip and sharpen. You can then download your finished images or export them to Flickr or ImageShack. The interface isn’t as polished as Picnik, it doesn’t have auto-adjustments or histograms, and ads clutter its pages. Picture2Life also offers a browser extension for Firefox or Internet Explorer that adds photo editing to the right-click menu.

Official Link

13. PikiPimp

Pikipimp, an online image-manipulation tool that lets you “pimp” your photos. Start by uploading a photo. Next you choose an object category (ranging from beards to wigs), then drag and drop individual objects onto your photo. Pikipimp supplies surprisingly robust tools, allowing you to resize, rotate, order and even adjust the transparency of each object. PikiPimp allows you to mod any photo you want with hundreds of choices. Like hair styles and beards, lips and cigars, tatoos and scars. When you’re done you can download the pimped photo or embed it in your site using provided code. Pikipimp requires no registration, though signing up (free) entitles you to store and edit your images, vote on other pimped pix and more. It’s a great way to have some fun with your photos.

Official Link

14. Pixenate

Pixenate is not only an online photo/image editor, but also a self-hosted solution software that you can install on your own web server. Pixenate is fully customizable and provides fully-documented API so you can change its appearance and behavior if you wish. Adding Pixenate to your website allows your visitors to edit photos.

Pixenate relies on standard web technologies such as HTML and JavaScript. You don’t need to download any extra plugins for it to work and that’s a big advantage. Pixenate only offers photo editing and nothing else, no storage or sharing. Most standard image editing facilities are present including enhance, crop, resize, rotate, red eye, whiten and so on. There are also a number of cool effects such as lomo which makes the photo more vivid, round which makes the corners rounded, interlace which makes the picture look like an old TV image and snow which adds a few snowflakes. Then there are a couple of other image filters such as oil-paint and charcoal.

Official Link

There are few other online photo Editors

• 15. DrPic
• 16. MyImager
• 17. Webresizer
• 18. Cellsea
• 19. Improve Your Images
• 20. EasyCropper
• 21. Resizr
• 22. Online Photo Tool
• 23. VicImager
• 24. Preloadr
• 25. 72photos
• 26. Lunapic
• 27. PicMagick
• 28. Ajax-image-editor
• 29. Rsizr
• 30. Pikifx

What’s your favorite?

Is your favorite web-based image editor not on the list? Share it with us in the comments, along with your experience and why you like it over other web-based image editors.