Picnik users will be familiar with all of those cute little picnic-related messages that appear while Picnik carries out various functions. Well, that’s the message that appears now, as Google prepares to shut down the service.

Picnik will be closing April 19, 2012.

In fact, Picnik is only one of a handful of Google products the company is shutting down. In a blog post called “Renewing Old Resolutions For The New Year” Google announced that it will be shutting down: Picnik, Urchin, Needlebase, Google Message Continuity (GMC) and the Social Graph API.

The Picnik team says on the Picnik blog:

Amazing photos are created in Picnik so we have launched a new feature,Picnik Takeout, that easily downloads your photos to your desktop in convenient zip files. You may also elect to copy your photos to Google+ where you can store and share your creations. You may request your photos at any time and use this handy tool as many times as you like until our closing date of April 19, 2012.

Premium customers will get a full refund within the week, the team says. Additionally, premium features will be free to all until the service shuts down.

On GMC, Google says, “In December 2010 we launched an email disaster recovery product for enterprise customers that use Google’s cloud to back up emails originally sent or received in an on-premise, Microsoft Exchange system. In the time since we launched, we’ve seen hundreds of businesses sign up for it. By comparison, in that same time, we’ve seen millions of businesses move entirely to the cloud with Google Apps, benefitting from disaster recovery capabilities built directly into Apps. Going forward we’ve decided to focus our efforts on Google Apps and end support for GMC. Current GMC customers will be able to use GMC for the duration of their contract and are encouraged to consider using Google Apps as their primary messaging and collaboration platform.”

Regarding Needlebase, the company says, “We are retiring this data management platform, which we acquired from ITA Software, on June 1, 2012. The technology is being evaluated for integration into Google’s other data-related initiatives.”

Regarding the Social Graph API, Google says, “This API makes information about the public connections between people on the web available for developers. The API isn’t experiencing the kind of adoption we’d like, and is being deprecated as of today. It will be fully retired on April 20, 2012.”

Finally, with regards to Urchin, Google says, “In 2005 we acquired Urchin, whose online web analytics product became the foundation for Google Analytics, helping businesses of all sizes measure their websites and online marketing. We’re fully committed to building an industry-leading online analytics product, so we’re saying goodbye to the client-hosted version, known as Urchin Software. New Urchin Software licenses will no longer be available after March 2012.”

In the same announcement, Google said it is also open sourcing Google Sky Map.

Picasa Web Albums users using English, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Vietnamese versions will be able to use Picnik photo editing.

To do so, simply click "edit in Picnik" from the edit drop-down menu or the new Picnik icon.

"Then, Picnik away by applying an effect, adding a sticker, or exploring your own creative path with advanced tools," Google says. "When you are done editing your photo, save back to your album by either replacing the existing image or making a new copy."

Picnik as a standalone service is still available (including a premium version in "3 tasty flavors").

"Google processes petabytes of data every day, and with their worldwide infrastructure and world-class team, it is truly the best home we could have found. Under the Google roof we’ll reach more people than ever before, impacting more lives and making more photos more awesome," says Picnik in its announcement.

Picnik lists the following as its features:

- Fix your photos in just one click
- Use advanced controls to fine-tune your results
- Crop, resize, and rotate in real-time
- Tons of special effects, from artsy to fun
- Astoundingly fast, right in your browser
- Awesome fonts and top-quality type tool
- Basketfuls of shapes from hand-picked designers
- Works on Mac, Windows, and Linux
- No download required, nothing to install

The basic version of Picnik is free, but there is a premium version with more features available for $24.95 a year.

"We’re not announcing any significant changes to Picnik today, though we’ll be working hard on integration and new features," says Google Product Management Director Brian Axe. "As well, we’d like to continue supporting all existing Picnik partners so that users will continue to be able to add their photos from other photo sharing sites, make edits in the cloud and then save and share to all relevant networks."

"We’re very impressed with the Picnik team and the product they’ve created, and we’re excited to welcome them to Google," says Axe. "We’re looking forward to collaborating closely with them to improve the online photo editing experience on the web. In the meantime, we encourage you to head to Picnik, import some of your photos from Picasa Web Albums, Flickr or Facebook and try your hand at photo editing in the cloud!"

Financial details of the acquisition are unknown at this point. Should Photoshop makers Adobe be worried?

The application’s feature set is complete, if not entirely impressive – users will get the standard resize, crop, change exposure, and red-eye removal tools, along with some “special effects” like black and white, sepia, frames, shapes, soften, and text.  What’s truly interesting about this development is that it’s all taking place within Flickr’s site.

Flickr members will now see an “Edit Photo” button for every picture they upload, and this will allow them to access all the aforementioned features without making any extra moves.  That means no additional log-ins, no hopping over to Picnik – just click and edit.

As a result, Andy Stern asks, “Will the incorporation of Picnik’s user-friendly photo editing tool make Flickr more attractive to mainstream photographers and social networking content producers?”  If so, the development could definitely be one of the more important ones in Flickr’s history.

If not, Flickr’s current users will still benefit, and the application should at least make it that much harder for competing services to gain an edge.

Don’t expect anything too fancy – professionals aren’t likely to abandon their software suite of choice.  Still, the deal should bring all the basic options aboard, and Picnik has a relatively large and enthusiastic fan base.

“Picnik was one of the first photo editing sites out there and has done a great job of distinguishing itself,” notes ZDNet’s Ryan Stewart.  “It was one of the first applications built for Facebook and has been gaining users at a steady clip.  I always wondered how they were going to make money but between the premium accounts and this partnership, it sounds like the company is well on its way.  The Picnik team has done a great job and this is very well deserved.”

The exact details of the partnership are unknown, however, so it’s hard to say just how much money this might put in Picnik’s pockets.  It’s also difficult to guess when the integration will be finished, but neither company is apt to drag its feet.

Just last week, Flickr announced plans to improve its geotagging abilities, as well.