WebProNews

As any thermometer will tell you, it’s December, and just in time for everybody’s holiday pictures, Flickr and Picnik have unveiled a new photo-editing application.

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.