Google announced today it has acquired Picnik, a cloud-based photo editing service. The company consists of about 20 employees.

"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?