Pixlr is a free to use graphics service that gives you Photoshop-like graphics capability to create and edit images in most popular formats.

Pixlr graphics software should be taken very seriously, despite its free-of-charge status, for one very important reason – it comes from a very highly respected and long-established software house called Autodesk. Autodesk are the creators of many industry standard software packages for the design and manufacturing industries, most notably, “AutoCad” which is the de-facto standard for CAD software throughout the world.

For those who want a bit of extra functionality there is an optional upgrde to the Pro version for just $1.99/month or $14.99 for the year. If you are serious about your images then the extra few pence a day is well worth it, but, I stress, not necessary for general everyday image editing work.

So what’s in the Pixlr toolkit? Lets take a quick look:

As you can see, the core of the Pixlr graphics software is a comprehensive image editor.

More than just image editing though, you can enhance you images, add effects and, as you can see from the graphic above, there’s a neat “vintage” effects tool as well.

As you have absolutely nothing to lose I strongly recommend that you get yourself a copy of the free version and play around with it. If, like us, you find that it has everything you need for day-to-day photo editing and other general purpose image work, then make it your standard and invest the $14.99 a year to get the extra twiddly bits.

Speaking as someone who, not so long ago, spent over £600 on a full blown copy of Photoshop, (which is brilliant, by the way, IF you need all that top-end functionality – at the time , I did), I think that most people would find the tools available in Pixlr more than enough. For those that need a bit more, then Photoshop can now be purchased on a low monthly subscription from Adobe.