If you are fans of Picnik, the online image editing tool, here is some bad news for you. Picnik will be shut-down from April 2012 onwards. Picnik made this announcement in its blog.
Picnik’s editing tools will still be available within Google+ images in the form of Creative Kit. But not all Picnik tools will be available. Even if Google does bring in all of Picnik’s image tools into Google+, that would mean users will need a Google+ account to use it.
A silver lining to Picnik closing down in April 2012 is that its premium features will be free to all users until it actually closes down.
I have always considered Picnik to be the best online tool for editing images. Picnik was bought by Google to improve its online image editing options. I was so impressed with this new acquisition from Google, that I wondered if Google might use this along with Picasa to challenge Flickr.
Google’s Clean up act
I guess this is part of Google’s clean-up act which has seen a host of not so popular products being canned. It first shutdown a host of services in September 2011 which included Google Toolbar and Aardvark. The in November 2011, it shutdown even more services like Google Friend Connect, Google Wave, Google Gears and others.
Usually most of these shutdown announcement have included more than just one or two services and I guess we might wait for a couple of days to see if Google will be phasing out more services.
What are your views on Picnik being closed down? Do drop in your comment.
5 Comments
That true and it really a bad new for many folks including me as I am one the big fan of picnik as I have worked lot with this.
Anyway. There must be better alternative every time for anything.
Please kindly advise if there’s a great photo editor as picnik for replacement after 19 April…. I’m using the super great editor almost everyday…. Thank you!!
@Joanne4: You might like the check Aviary tools instead of Picnik.
What do I think of Google’s decision to close Picnik? I am in MOURNING at the loss of my friend, my creative edge. Nothing else compares to the simplicity and options they offered for editing amateur and family photographs. Even my worst photo looked great after using their services. Although I use many google products, google+ holds no interest for me. So, goodbye my friend, I will remember you kindly and how wonderful you made my life while we preserved memories together…..RIP.