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Here on this blog I hope to get a conversation going amongst students, teachers, administrators, and parents about who, what, when, why, and where we should teach technology skills for the 21st century. I am technology teacher at Truckee High School in Truckee, CA and currently teach classes like digital media, e-learning, applications, and keyboarding -- yes...still important! :) Please Join the Conversation!

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Do you need Adobe Photoshop or is Pixlr (www.pixlr.com ) sufficient for most of us?

student using pixlr to edit photos
Has anyone used both Adobe Photoshop and Pixlr extensively enough to determine whether or not they can do most of what they did on Photoshop with www.pixlr.com Editor and Express?

Last year in my Digital Media class at Truckee High School I was teaching on PCs that had Adobe Photoshop installed on them.  We used it for many of our lessons and students created a lot of great work with it.  This year, I was lucky to have my classroom upgraded with new Apple iMacs.  These computers are a big improvement from my older Dells but they did not come with Photoshop installed on them.  I'm looking into purchasing licenses for this software but in the meantime have found that Pixlr online editing software has allowed my students to complete all of my introductory editing lessons teaching them basic photo editing, effects, and layering.  I have not used Pixlr long enough however to determine where I will reach a road block.

Please comment below with your thoughts regarding Pixlr and it's capabilities in regards to Adobe Photoshop.  From my experience so far, I do think that I can confidently state that most people could do most of what they did on Photoshop with Pixlr and of course the best part is that Pixlr's software is free and even better, requires no account or login!

The picture above is of a student in my digital media class using Pixlr Editor to add filters and adjustments to her digital photographs.  The kids have a lot of fun with this lesson as it really provides them an outlet for their creativity which they can then share with others on Flickr or Google+ Photos.

15 comments:

  1. Ive never used Adobe Photoshop but i like the fact that pixlr is free and it has lots of options.

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    1. It is pretty amazing what is available for free online these days. However, there is usually always a point at which you need to pay to continue doing all that you want.

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  2. i think pixlr is great !

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  3. i haven't used adobe photoshop before but pixlr is an easy to use tool that is free and a good way to edit photos.

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  4. Ribbet is also a great cloud-based photo editor:

    http://www.ribbet.com/

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    1. Thanks for the share. Looks like you need an account. Does the free account give you quite a bit of capabilities?

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  5. Once you get into more advance photo editing photoshop is necessary and pixlr won't get the job done.

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  6. i haven't used adobe but pixlr is a good editing site

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  7. I have never heard of pixlr before but then i once i used it, it was very helpful.

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  8. I've used both. On a basic level, Pixlr and Photoshop are very similar, but once you get into more specialized editing, you'll hit a road block. The thing I've noticed already is that Pixlr is lacking a Smart Select tool and Smart Brush tool. These are the two tools I use the most often with photoshop, so not having them is making it difficult to achieve the results I want. Besides that, Photoshop has other specialized filters, better color options, and a "smarter" system. It's the better tool all around.

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    1. Great feedback - thanks for sharing your experience. I would hope for what Photoshop costs that it would be better. Hopefully we will have licensing for it here soon.

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  9. I have never used Photoshop, so I can't compare it to Pixlr, but so far I really enjoy using Pixlr because it's easy to use and it has a great variety of different effects to create a better picture than before.

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  10. I have never used Adobe Photoshop before however, I have been enjoying Pixlr because it has so may different options and is very easy to use and understand.

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  11. I haven't used photoshop yet but i really like how Pixlr is free and really easy to use. Im excited to learn more about it.

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  12. I haven't used either but the other Google apps seem sufficient. Thanks for sharing.

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Thanks for joining in on our conversation!