Image editing tools every writer needs.
Once upon a time writers only wrote and designers only designed, but the rise of digital media means those boundaries have blurred. Writers, especially those working in the blogosphere and managing social accounts increasingly need to undertake basic design and image manipulation as part of their day-to-day job. This selection of image editing tools will help you respond to the rise of visual social media popularised by sites such as Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram.
1/ Ribbit [Free]
Best for: Desktop image editing tasks
Available: ribbit.com
I like Ribbit for its ease of use. You don’t need to register to use it and within seconds you can upload a picture stored in the cloud or on your computer and edit it in your browser (a real benefit when time’s tight and you need to execute work at high speed). With all the usual photo editing suspects: crop, rotate, exposure, colour, sharpen and resize, Ribbit is perfect for everyday tasks. You can also personalise photos by adding filters and text, with the ability to use fonts installed on your computer, not just the ones supplied.
2/ Photoshop Express [Free]
Best for: On-the-go image editing
No review of image editing software is going to be complete without mentioning image software giant Adobe. While the Adobe suite requires a big investment of capital, its most basic app version can crop, rotate, adjust colours and add artistic effects virtually anywhere. Enabling you to pull in photos taken from your phone and adjust them using one-touch effects or by dragging your finger across the screen, you can share the edited images directly on Facebook or Twitpic.
3/ Pixlr Editor (Advanced) [Free]
Best for: Professional image editing
Available: pixlr.com/editor
Quite often image editors try to be all things to all people, but your editing needs can differ from project to project and from device to device. Pixlr recognizes this and categorizes its photo editing services into Advanced, Efficient and Playful, with its Advanced site making it possible to do complex editing tasks. From removing unwanted objects or placing objects on different backgrounds with the lasso tool to blending different images and modifying backgrounds using layers, Pixlr is the closest you’ll get to Adobe's image-editing software Photoshop. It's also cloud-based, so there's no software to install.
4/ Pinnacle Studio [�8.99]
Best for: Editing video, audio and photos
Available on iPad
While pictures can be “worth a thousand words” there are times when neither pictures nor written content alone are enough. In such cases you may find yourself scriptwriting for corporate video. Increasingly seen as~an important part of a company’s content strategy, Pinnacle Studio helps everyone become confident filmmakers by enabling the user to easily arrange clips in the Storyboard, edit them using Timeline and add effects and a soundtrack. The~app also lets you share your video directly to platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Box, increasing your client’s exposure across different networks.
5/ Image Tricks Lite [Free]
Best for: visual filters
Available on Mac
Image Tricks is a fun image editing tool for the Mac chock-full of effects, overlays and stylized filters. With generators and customisable overlays, the ability to convert photos into ASCII art and then frame them, the overwhelming choice of bells and whistles makes it hard to find the most common image editing tools. There’s also a notable lack of instructions with the app. While good for its visual filters, Image Tricks is less useful to writers seeking a quick and easy image editing app.