So who is Picnik and what do they do? Basically they help the average Joe improve their average photography.
Picnik is photo editing awesomeness, online, in your browser. It’s the easiest way on the Web to fix underexposed photos, remove red-eye, or apply effects to your photos. – picnik FAQ
The photo above is a collage from the official Google Blog announcement of the deal and while Google says they are not announcing any significant changes for now you can bet that they will eventually come. Traditionally when Google snags something they have bigger plans in mind than just running another company.
Sure I know there are plenty of editors for the average man but look again at the photo above and spend a few minutes on the picnik site. You’ll soon see that picnik actually works pretty darn well for an online subscription based piece of editing software. With Google’s money and marketing behind them and their obvious ability to mimic the same “actionified” photos that make some marginally talented photographers work unique it’s going to be harder for those of you who rely only on “professional” post processing to stand out.
What do you guys think?
via|lifehacker
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4 Comments at "Google After a Piece of Your Post Processing Pie"
Im sure the next rounds of I-photo will do the same
Frankly Ive never been much in favor of the action solves all style of photography
I have a few actions that I’ve built or modified and they are very basic
Contrast,punch and black and whites thats all really
It seem that like any fad or trend ,eventually the mass audience will have it too.
The people who originally created the” action suite ” for sale, were doing much the same for the wedding photographers out there who don’t really want to experiment with Photoshop themselves.
The final point to all of this is can they produce images where this can be applied to a whole wedding, without quitting their day job?
Take some great pictures, the content will allow it to shine. An action will only help out the weaker or more mundane shots to pop!
Fashion is a fickle mistress!!
The waters have been muddied for a while now on the line of consumer vs. professional post-processing. No longer will an average photograph with a “cool” action over if be suddenly seen as “artistic” or great. But I think this is a good thing for professional photography. It really all comes down to the images. The sample google posted actually contains better than average photos, hence the actions applied look great. The average Joe simply doesn’t take great photos. The pros who will survive all this sort of stuff are those who know that capturing a great image is the heart of the issue. Solid post-processing will make that image shine to a level that is impossible to duplicate with just “actions”.
The more you lean on “professional” post processing, the harder it will become to not be average. The quality of the underlying image will dictate the image result, as Mindy highlights. It will be interesting to watch what type of investment Google will make in Picnik going forward — I am assuming they just want to keep pace with Apple and not necessarily the professional editing software.
Cloud computing has just arrived in our world.
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