Pixlr – Terrific, Free, Web-based Image Editor

pixlr in operation in full screen mode I discovered a terrific new web-based image editor called pixlr.com. It works like Photoshop Elements, Paint.net and other popular image editors – but from inside any browser, with nothing to install.

It’s free. No sign-up or user account needed. No downloads or installs required. It just works – instantly.

Remarkably, If you have Adobe Flash 10 installed, it works like a desktop app, but, still, in your browser. Load and save images from your PC via typical desktop pull-down menus. Press F11 to make it go full screen. It looks and feels like you are running a desktop app.

It works on the Mac or a PC – anywhere you can install Adobe Flash. This is particularly attractive for Mac users given that there is no useful image editor built into OS X.

Pixlr Editing ZatzNotFunny.com Screen GrabWith this Pixlr Firefox extension installed, one mouse click opens screen shots from any web site directly into pixlr. I captured this front page image from www.ZatzNotFunn.com – with just one click (click image for larger view). I used File – Save As, to save the image to my desktop. I could have edited it, cropped it, added layers, etc. before saving.

It’s an astonishing tool that really shows the power of web-based apps and the future of cloud computing.

Here’s a YouTube demo of Pixlr in action. Here’s another. And another. Wonderful.

See also: 15 online photo editors compared

Comments

comments

25 Replies to “Pixlr – Terrific, Free, Web-based Image Editor”

  1. I signed up, but never really used it. My brief experience seemed more tedious and limited than just firing up Elements which I already own. There’s one other service, I played with and maybe Mari blogger, but I don’t remember. Just because I can do something online, doesn’t mean I want to? Hm.

  2. Terrific article Glen.nnEckel makes some good points but I don’t think he’s fully giving credit where credit is do and what makes Silicon Valley so successful – its a willingness to take Risks, as Sun did, and ship something that is ‘good enough’ rather than wait around for perfection. nnClearly JAVA, Javascript and AJAX have limitations and we need to evolve to advance standards, frameworks, front ends etc. But I’m delighted Sun did what they did. The Internet revolution was, in part, fueled by Java, JavaScript and AJAX (limited as they were) – especially the whole Web 2.0 phenomena.nnCouldn’t agree more though that building for the web is a pain – even today. As I developed wishhh.com (PHP, MySQL, CSS – and a little java that I could crib off from others) I needed to constantly test across a half dozen browsers (old and new versions). While wishhh.com works on almost everything, making it do so came at a huge cost of time and energy for me. For future projects I think I’m going to scale back and focus on only the top 3 browsers of the day and say ‘ to hell with the rest’. I’m a one man shop when it comes to development. If users are unwilling to move up to a current browser (when they are ALL free) I’m not going to feel sorry for them if they can’t use my site.nnIf there ever is a global CSS standard adhered too by all browsers, I’ll be the first to cheer! As for building with Flash, I’ve never even looked into it. I have assumed it would be either too complex or too expensive for me to tinker with. And, for the moment, I’m immersed in all things iPhone development related. Though I do hope to get back into web development once again in the future – more likely mobile to web interactive apps with the iPhone and Android.

  3. Thanks for sharing this. Nice to hear of these kinds of apps becoming available.rnrnEveryone likes web-based applications because of the simple deployment (nothing to install, always up to date, etc). But in general, building web-based apps has just been a pain. All the frameworks just try to implement work arounds for the missing parts: session, state, validation, widgets, and the like.rnrnRich applications with the benefit of web deployment will ultimately come through virtual machines (in this case Flash). Two years ago, Bruce Eckel (C++ and Java author, ISO committee member) wrote an interesting piece which started with “The Web is a Mess” and ended with “Use Flex for the front end” (http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=193593). As a Java evangelist, he took a lot of flak for that article. I think it holds true. But the major effort still seems to be put into web frameworks. I guess that may be justified when one thinks of mobile devices.

  4. Thanks for sharing this. Nice to hear of these kinds of apps becoming available.

    Everyone likes web-based applications because of the simple deployment (nothing to install, always up to date, etc). But in general, building web-based apps has just been a pain. All the frameworks just try to implement work arounds for the missing parts: session, state, validation, widgets, and the like.

    Rich applications with the benefit of web deployment will ultimately come through virtual machines (in this case Flash). Two years ago, Bruce Eckel (C++ and Java author, ISO committee member) wrote an interesting piece which started with “The Web is a Mess” and ended with “Use Flex for the front end” (http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thre…). As a Java evangelist, he took a lot of flak for that article. I think it holds true. But the major effort still seems to be put into web frameworks. I guess that may be justified when one thinks of mobile devices.

  5. Terrific article Glen.

    Eckel makes some good points but I don't think he's fully giving credit where credit is do and what makes Silicon Valley so successful – its a willingness to take Risks, as Sun did, and ship something that is 'good enough' rather than wait around for perfection.

    Clearly JAVA, Javascript and AJAX have limitations and we need to evolve to advance standards, frameworks, front ends etc. But I'm delighted Sun did what they did. The Internet revolution was, in part, fueled by Java, JavaScript and AJAX (limited as they were) – especially the whole Web 2.0 phenomena.

    Couldn't agree more though that building for the web is a pain – even today. As I developed wishhh.com (PHP, MySQL, CSS – and a little java that I could crib off from others) I needed to constantly test across a half dozen browsers (old and new versions). While wishhh.com works on almost everything, making it do so came at a huge cost of time and energy for me. For future projects I think I'm going to scale back and focus on only the top 3 browsers of the day and say ' to hell with the rest'. I'm a one man shop when it comes to development. If users are unwilling to move up to a current browser (when they are ALL free) I'm not going to feel sorry for them if they can't use my site.

    If there ever is a global CSS standard adhered too by all browsers, I'll be the first to cheer! As for building with Flash, I've never even looked into it. I have assumed it would be either too complex or too expensive for me to tinker with. And, for the moment, I'm immersed in all things iPhone development related. Though I do hope to get back into web development once again in the future – more likely mobile to web interactive apps with the iPhone and Android.

  6. I signed up, but never really used it. My brief experience seemed more tedious and limited than just firing up Elements which I already own. There's one other service, I played with and maybe Mari blogger, but I don't remember. Just because I can do something online, doesn't mean I want to? Hm.

  7. Yes … me too … I’ll continue to use paint.net. I was mostly impressed with what can be done online and in the fact that I can use it on my iMac where I need a decent image editor.

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