Adobe Photoshop Express

Pros

• Visually based image editing helps newbies
• Easy to use

Cons

• Uploads limited by file size and dimensions

Express offers only a smattering of effects, compared with the dozens found in most of the services reviewed. You can’t even add text to an image, let alone frame your picture in a border. And you have no way to layer multiple photos. It feels as if Adobe has halfway completed a potentially top-notch photo editor (at this writing, Photoshop Express is still labeled as a beta). Read More

Picture 2 Life

Pros

• Jam-packed with features
• Collages, slideshows, photo sharing

Cons

• Frustrating user interface
• Sluggish

Picture2Life is full of stuff, including one of the longest special effects lists among the editors in our chart. A unique collage creator. Picture2Life’s Flickr-import interface is so confusing that I thought I’d failed to do the job when I’d actually succeeded. Picture2Life automatically downsamples your high-res photographs, a step that speeds up image processing; you can override it, but only up to 1600 by 1200 pixels. I wouldn’t bother, though, since other services match most of Picture2Life’s capabilities without the hassles. Read More

Pros

• Tons of photofinishing features
• Goodies such as fonts and clip art

Cons

• Byzantine interface
• No undo for some features

FlauntR is a veritable eye-candy store crammed with effects, fonts, clip art, borders, and other tools. It can create slide shows and prep images to be social-network avatars or cell-phone wallpaper. You can apply color schemes from famous paintings to your images, create electronic greeting cards, or even slap your photo on a mock magazine cover. FlauntR works only on Windows PCs. FlauntR is nowhere near as frustrating as Picture2Life, but it lacks the elegance and efficiency of FotoFlexer, Photoshop Express, and Picnik. At least FlauntR doesn’t claim to be ready for prime time: Although it appeared in 2007, it’s still labeled an alpha release. Read More

Picnik

Pros

• Integrates with multiple photo sharing sites
• Good selection of standard editing tools

Cons

• Color and exposure auto-fixes are conservative

Picnik certainly takes its name to heart: Its sleek tabbed interface has a blue-sky background and blades of grass, and it claims to be picking blackberries, buttering sandwiches, and cueing up birdsongs as it loads. But the service’s playful personality belies its serious capabilities. In fact, of the six online photo editors I reviewed for PC World, Picnik’s free version is my top pick–even without some features available only in the $25-a-year Premium edition. Read More

SplashUp

Pros

• Photoshop-like layer and selection tools.

Cons

• Relatively few effects; no online help
• Speed and reliability issues

If an award existed for “Web Image Editor Most Likely to Be Mistaken for Photoshop,” Splashup (formerly known as Fauxto) would win in a cakewalk. Drop-down menus, floating tool palettes, and multiple features are located exactly as in Adobe’s flagship product. That’s not an inherent plus, though–after all, Photoshop is notorious for having a less-than-intuitive interface, and I found FotoFlexer and Picnik easier to navigate.

Splashup was less sprightly and more glitchy than some rivals. Images in a Flickr album appeared slowly, and sometimes didn’t open at all. Splashup’s creators say a new version is in the works. But for now, unless you’re a fanatical devotee of the Photoshop approach to things, FotoFlexer and Picnik have more to offer. Read More

Every other applications has itz on pros and cons, FotoFlexer and Picnik seam to be leading the race with some better known features. Let us all wait for there final release to decide on the best from the list.