The tools on this page are all designed to allow you to do something with your photographs. I will not list all the photo editors available but will rather be looking for tools that allow you to do something extra with your photos. You may also consider looking at the Presentation/Slideshow, Cartoon and Comics pages. While many of the tools listed below also support presentations the primary output for these tools will be printed.

1. Zoomr - This tool can be started without validating your e-mail. It has a simple photo uploader which worked quickly. I think the idea is that you can post your photos and then talk to others about them using a blog like tool called a zipline. Not overly impressed.

2. Flickr - One of the original photo sharing tools. You can upload and edit your photos and allow others to see and comment upon them. Photos can then be made into cards, photo cubes, calendars and photobooks. Increasingly other tools are allowing you to import photos from other accounts and because of Flickr's high profile you are almost certainly going to be able to import photos from Flickr to other tools. It may therefore well be worth students using a Flickr account as standard to host all of their images wihch can then be reused in several tools.

3. Photoflexer - Sometimes you want to edit a photo before putting it into another tool such as a website. If you don't have expensive software such as Photoshop then Web 2.0 may just be the solution you need. A number of free tools have started to appear which allow you to edit photos online much the way you used to have to do with a desktop app. You can import photos from your hard drive or from other sources such as Picassa or Flickr. The photo below was produced using the tool. While it worked well I was unable to save the file to my PC even though I should have been able to.



4. Mixbook - You can begin the tool without validating your e-mail. You can control who has access to the books you create and who has the right to edit. Pictures can be uploaded from your hard drive or imported from other services such as Picasa. The finished product is an online book which can also be printed. If you were doing several books as a class project you could perhaps purchase the best one.






5. PictureTrail - There were 5 pages of adverts to go through before I got to try this tool which was a tad annoying. The finished product is a gallery which can be presented in a host of different ways.




6. Tabblo - Tabblo was one of the first tools I ever used and I have purchased photo albums from them. Unfortunately, following a takeover by Hewlett Packard they no longer sell products to the UK. However, the templates for their albums are first class and you can still produce a good looking online album. Tabblo also allows you to make posters which can be downloaded as PDF files for free. In addition you can also print Photo Cubes. The net of the cube can be printed and folded to make a cube for free. You may have to download a tool to upload your photos although they can also be imported from other sources.



7. Big Hude Labs - This tool can be used without validating your e-mail. You upload a photo and add a caption. Unfortunately, you don't see the two together until the next screen loads which makes it a little awkward. This is more or less all this tool does and I think there are better ones out there. However, this website has many other tools you may find interesting so worth a visit.



8. MagMyPic - This tool allows you to turn your photo into a magazine cover. You have no control over the cover other than the choice of photo. You cannot print the final product although you could do a screen shot and print from there.



9. Photobucket - You can begin without validating your e-mail. You can create your own albums or group albums which could be useful for class projects. You can create slideshows of your pictures but the most interesting feature is the scrapbook link. The scrapbook is powered by Scrapblog which I have reviewed in the Mutimedia Scrapbooks page. However, this is an example of a Scrapblog and while they would be too expensive to print out one for every one in the class, you may decide that printing the best one would have high motivational value and would be an impressive part of any Open Day display.





10. Bookr - No log in is required for this tool. The reason this tool is included is for its simplicity and ease of use rather than the quality of its output. You upload photos from your Flickr account or browse Flickr for a topic. Photos are placed into the book with a simple title but unfortunately you can do no other editing. The book can then be published online for viewing but there is no facility for printing. There is a very basic search engine which is based on tags so you would need to make sure books were saved with a fairly unique tag to find it again. Click on the page below to turn it to the next page.





11. PhotoSoup - This is a Yahoo tool but does not require any log in. It is criminally easy to use and would probably work best as a tool for you to make for your students which could then be used by them online or presented on a data projector or white board. I suppose students could make their own to improve their vocabulary. In essence you put in a search term, the computer automatically generates a wordsearch based on words related to your search term and adds relevant photos. You have no conrtol over the words that are chosen and I noticed one or two misspelt. Click on the first letter of the word and drag your mouse to cover all the other letters. If you get it right the word turns green and the clock adds 10 seconds. You can click on the solution but where is the fun in that. If you fail you need to re-enter the topic...the word to enter is 'Penguins'.




12. Collagr - Click on the Logo to begin. There is no log in or registration required. Photos are generated from Flickr or Photobucket collection and you need a URL from these sites to create your Collage. You could either get the students to create a Flickr or Photobucket album of their own photos or search these sites for a suitable album and use its ULR. As with some of the other tools there is not a great deal of control over the finished produce although this tool does allow you to change the settings of your Collage. I could not get it to work the day I tried it but evidently others could. Click Here for an example Collage.


13. Qollage - You do not need to validate your e-mail to begin using the tool. The editing tools have a very functional look to them but they work reasonably well. It was a little slow the day I tried it. You can add images to the page but apart from resizing them there is not a great deal you can do to improve the appearance of the page. There are backgrounds but no themes such as with Scrapblog. Sharing and collaboration is performed by e-mail invitation. If you want a stripped down version of scrapblog this one is for you. Click Here to see an Example Qollage.


14. Pikeo - This tool does not require you to validate your e-mail to begin using it. In essence this is a photo sharing tool. The function I think that would be most useful for teachers is the group tool. You could create a group to collect photos on a particular theme. Once added you can view the photos and comment on them. Thus the entire group can tell you what they think of each individual photo. There is also the option to view as a slideshow with the comments appearing in a separate panel on the right hand side. Because the screen is split in three it is worth noting that if you scroll down where the photo appears you will see an extra toolbar which enables you to write a fairly lengthy description of the photo. This combined with the commenting facility means you could have quite a discussion built around the images. It is also here that you will find the tool to give your picture a geographical tag. This could be useful for a Geography teacher to collect pictures representing certain physical characteristics of a country or a history teacher to locate pictures representing the location of historical events. Rather cleverly this can be added by placing a pin or typing the name of the location if you are not sure where it is. When I tried the tool the location of the pictures did not automatically get saved to the map which I presume was a bug in the programme. Instead I had to add the locations as a tag in the tag box on the bottom right hand side of the screen. Click Here to view an example.



16. Trippermap - This is another Flickr tool which will require a Flickr account to operate. There is a free and subscription service which costs around $10 per annum. You must make sure your Flickr photos are tagged with the correct location. Trippermap will create an automatic map for you.




17. Blabberize - Give your pictures a voice - Does exactly what it says on the tin.



18. Be funky - This one is just a bit of fun. It enables you to make a cartoon of yourself. The tool is very easy to use and works really well. The finished product can be downloaded and used on other websites. This is a picture of me and my dog.



19. Picnik - This is another photo editor. The free functions have some limitations but it works very well and performs all the basic functions you would need. The premum version is as powerful as many desktop editors. You do not need to register to edit your photos. The example below allows you to choose part of the photo in colour and the rest in black and white.



20. Glass Giant - Was a bit slow to load but an excellent site to have some fun with your photos. I have put a few examples into a slideshow below. The images are from Glass Giant, the show was made using Slide. The images can all be saved onto your hard drive for further use.



21. Picture2Life - You can begin without validating your password. Photos can be uploaded from your hard drive or a photo sharing service such as Flickr. You can edit the photos using a fairly thorough editing tool. You can create a Collage from your pictures and I was impressed by the wide range of templates you could chose from. You can also create an animation using this tool.





22. CustomInk - This tool is an online T-Shirt Maker. Students can design their own T-shirt with graphics, images and text. I have used this tool to design T-Shirts for a charity. Some students liked it so much they went on to design their own T-shirt. The final product can easily be printed. If you wanted to make things more competitive you could always purchase the best one.



23. Skitch - This tool allows you to snap pictures from the web and to change them by adding text and graphics. Looks like quite a powerful tool for jazzing up your pictures or snapping images from your screen.

24. Photofunia - This simple tool allows you to insert your picture into a range of backgrounds. How would you like your face on a billboard or on Mount Rushmore. This is an Andy Warhol example.



25. Skitch - This is part whiteboard/part screen sharing tool/part image editor. You can use skitch to share images or screenshots with others. You can post to an integrated blog page and also edit the pictures. If you communicate using images this could be a very useful tool for you. Click on the link to watch an introductory video.

26. Sumopaint - This is another on-line phot-editor. The tool works well and seems to be quite powerful allowing you to build up a series of layers.

27. Write on it - This site allows you to make fake magazine covers or add your face to other bodies, generally messing around wih photos. Looks great fun.

28. Aviary - Wow - This tool allows you to edit videos, create works of art/backgrounds and design logos. I was very impressed by the quality and if it is as easy to use as the site suggests this will soon be top of your list of image editors. These two sample images give you some idea of the power of this editor.



29. PicLits - This is a clever little tool that matches pictures with words in order to capture the essence, mood etc. of the scene. You cannot upload your own photo but there is a freestyle option which allows the user to create their own series of words to attach to the picture. This is an example picture from the website.



30. Textorizer - This tool is a downloadable app rather than an online tool but I thought I should include it as some of you may find it useful . In essence it allow s you to create a picture from text such as in the example below.





31. Tiltshiftmaker - This tool allows you to create an area of your picture to stand out. Very simple to use the best way to explain is to look at an example.