Pixlr – The online image editor

Pixlr had been developed by a Swedish guy who launched the service with this understated blog post consisting of just:

“So it’s sunday afternoon in Sweden and tomorrow I will let a few know about pixlr. I wonder what they will say about the result of from a years work and thousands of lines of code?”

Fairly non-committal, especially considering the strength of his application. I have no idea if this was a hobby, if he has plans to monetize it or license it, at the moment the idea seems to just be get the word out.

What immediately endeared the service to me was the fact there is no sign-up registration, simply “jump right in” and get started. This is a huge advantage, there is nothing worse then wanting to try a new service but being confronted by yet another registration form.

The application itself is more on the lines of Photoshop express, rather then a complete Photoshop replacement like Aviary is aiming to become. Personally I found it a happy medium between the two, enough functionality without being too basic either.

It also looks pretty darn good, if you’re a fan of the Vista Aero interface. Actually even if you aren’t I think you’ll be hard put to dislike it. Performance wise I would say it’s fantastic, menus are snappy and I could barely tell it was a browser based program.

That said, I will admit I haven’t fully tested it with larger photos, more tasks etc.

The ironic thing I found about using Pixlr is that I immediately wished there was a way I could have the application offline as well as through the browser. It feels a lot slicker and smoother then freeware Paint.NET and would fit well into the Vista desktop, which is a lot more then can be said for most apps.

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