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When you want to make the most of your images, check out PicMonkey. The service is online so you can use it from any computer without having to download software. The service is free, with a small charge for Royale Membership if you want to use advanced features (none of these tips require a Royale membership). PicMonkey is easy to use, intuitive and frequently being upgraded with new features such as the ability to use your own fonts.
See, PicMonkey – How to Use Your Own Fonts for Free!
Even though I’ve been using PicMonkey since when it was Picnik years ago, I am still learning cool new tricks to make the most of my images. These tricks are easy and fun, sure to bring out the creative side of you! By taking a few minutes to learn these tricks you can become a pro at editing your images!
Color Matching
When you’re trying to match a color exactly you can do two things:
- Guess at the color
- Match it exactly
Usually choice 2 is your best bet.
PicMonkey makes it super easy to match colors. Use their eyedropper tool to pick a color in your image and get the color exactly matched. PicMonkey will even provide you with the numerical color code for the color you matched.
For example, let’s say you had a beautiful photo of a garden and wanted to use PicMonkey’s framing feature to match one of the colors in the flower beds.
- Click on the frame icon on the left menu bar
- Choose the frame you want to use (I used Museum Matte in the example)
- Click on the part of the frame you want to match the color of (I used the inner matte in the example)
- Click on the eyedropper in the upper right corner of the color picker window
- Drag the eyedropper over the color you want to match. The frame will change colors as the eyedropper moves to give you a preview of the colors.
- When you find the color you want to use, click on the eyedropper to set the color.
You can find the numbered color code by going back to the color picker window and copying the color code from the box.
You can also color match text easily with PicMonkey. Click on the bar to the right of the color picker chart that appears when you’re entering text. An eyedropper will appear. Drag the eyedropper over the image to color you want to choose and click to make the text the same color.
⇒ Also see, Color Your World with Tech! for other tech tools to match colors.
Layer Images
You can put images on top of images with PicMonkey. This can come in very handy if you want to add your logo, a picture-in-picture effect, create a Facebook or blog header, or design another layered image.
To layer images, click on the Butterfly icon in the left menu bar to reveal a choice of overlays you can add to your photo. Click on the Your Own button to add an image from your computer to the photo. You can also click on the down arrow to reveal a drop-down menu to add an image directly from:
- OneDrive
- Dropbox
- Flickr
When the overlay image is added, you can drag and drop the image to move it and drag and drop the corner/edges to change the size of it.
Eraser
PicMonkey has a lot of very cool special effects but sometimes you don’t want the effects to cover your entire image. Good news! You don’t have to! You can use the eraser tool to remove part of the effect. You can also use the eraser tool to remove part of an overlay.
For example, I added the Black & White effect to a photo by clicking the Effects wand icon in the left menu and choosing Black & White. I then clicked on the Paint Brush Box to reveal the Paint window.
I clicked on Original to bring up a circle that allows me to erase the effect within the circle. I dragged the circle around the balloon to erase the effect and reveal the original colors of the balloon while leaving the Black & White effect on the rest of the photo. I clicked Apply to save my changes.
You can reverse the effect by clicking the Reverse effect button in the Paint window.
You can control the size of your brush, as well as the hardness of the edges and the strength of the effect, in the Paint window.
Outlining
In the images above I an outline effect to highlight exactly what the arrows were pointing to. I used to use either the letter O or the number zero to get that effect, but I learned a much easier way to get an outline on PicMonkey.
- Click on the Butterfly icon in the left menu to reveal Overlays
- Click on Geometric
- Choose the shape you want to use. (I almost always use ovals or rectangles instead of circles or squares so I can better control the shape of the outline.)
- The Overlay window will appear.
- Click on Color 1 to choose the color of the outline you want to use. ⇒You can use the eyedropper tool to match the colors!
- Click on Color 2 and click the Transparent box.
You’ve just created your outline. You can drag the corners/edges of the outline to get it to the size and shape you want.
Your Thoughts
Do you use PicMonkey like a pro? Have you used any of these PicMonkey features? Do you have any tips for using PicMonkey? Share your thoughts with us in the Comment section below!
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* Garden image (edited) courtesy of Agustin Rafael Reyes via Flickr and Creative Commons
* Balloon image (edited) courtesy of Tony Beverley via Flickr and Creative Commons
Great info as always. Thanks!
Thank you, Kaarina. I’m glad you found this article helpful. I appreciate you taking the time to let us know. 🙂
Hello! Great write up, thank you. These are great tips for your readers! I just wanted to point out that you can use the eye dropper to match colors in the text tool. Admittedly, it’s not intuitive but you can do it. To the right of the tool box that pops-up when you have selected your text, to the right of the color palette box is a grey rectangle standing on it’s end. Click in this box and your cursor turns into an eye dropper, thus allowing you to match a color.
Happy editing!
Lisa
Hi Lisa, Thanks so much for stopping by The Wonder of Tech. I’m glad you enjoyed this article.
I appreciate you letting us know about color matching in text. That’s much more convenient than the way I suggested in the article. I will update the article to include your instructions so readers will know that they can match color in text as well on PicMonkey.
Hey Carolyn,
After reading your interesting review about Picmonkey, I can easily say this tool is amazing and easy to use. However I’m a big fan of Photoshop and do everything related to images over there only. But yes if you’re traveling and you don’t have access to your laptop or system then you can certainly try Picmonkey.
Hi Pankaj, You’re right, Photoshop is a very powerful photo editing tool. But it requires a learning curve as well as a significant expense so not everyone is going to be a Photoshop user. PicMonkey can be a useful tool for those who don’t have Photoshop or, as you point out, for those who are away from their computers.
Hi Carolyn,
I just tried PicMonkey and tried editing a photo I had done earlier using PhotoScape. It was much slower but the final result was the same. PhotoScape does much more faster and easier, but doesn’t do the colour matching. Except in ‘clone’. I suppose it’s OK, but I prefer Windows Live gallery for most things and PhotoScape for the more artistic stuff. PicMonkey did do something called frosting a little better than PhotoScape.
The local paper didn’t use my Landscape photography lesson yet. They used a snow picture that I took. My snow keeps coming up pink! I think it’s infra red light when I turn up the ISO. More snow is forecast so I’ll have to experiment! I’ve been experimenting with a long lens and the camera on HD video today! We have an event next week. A new arts organisation with 2 million in Arts Council cash is being launched! They like my edits already! I think my top photo this week could win a photography competition!
Hi Mike, Yes, PicMonkey has a lot of different editing tools and perhaps has some that might work best for some of your photos, such as color matching. That’s great you have an editing tool that works well for you. No need to fix what doesn’t work.
A lot of my friends living in England have pictures of the snow on their Facebook pages. I hope you got some good shots today that weren’t pink!
Hey Carolyn,
How has your 2015 been going so far?
PicMonkey is the best when it comes to creating images for blogging and social media. I use Canva a lot too, but most of the time I end up bringing those images I create in Canva over to PicMonkey when I need to resize them or add text overlays with fonts I have on my Mac.
Thanks for the tutorial!
Hi Ileane, Happy New Year! My 2015 has been a bit chaotic so far but I keep hoping life will calm down. How is your 2015 so far?
Yes, I like Canva too but every time I start an image on Canva I end up finishing it on PicMonkey. I find PicMonkey to be more intuitive to use and I also like how I can use my own fonts.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us, Ileane!
Thank You for sharing this valuable information.This PicMoney is online photo editing tool and thids post explains in easy way how to use picmoney.
Hi Carolyn
Vow, you made quite easier to avail all the benefits of free version of Pickmonkey with this wonderful post.
Many people think it needs a lot of graphic skills to use such software and can’t understand these tools are invented to help those who can’t work at any professional software like PhotoShop.
Thanks for sharing these useful tips.
Hi Mi, Excellent point. Many people don’t bother to edit their photos because they think they have to buy expensive software or learn a lot of complex instructions. But editing photos with PicMonkey is free and easy, plus you can do it anywhere you have a computer connected to the Internet.
I hope you enjoy using PicMonkey, Mi!
I love PicMonkey! I use it all the time for a variety of photo editing needs. I frequently use the Sharpen and Exposure functions to ensure my photos are crisp and clear. I haven’t used the technique you mention about layering, and can’t wait to now apply it to my images.
Hi Carol, Yes, I am a fan of the filters too. Sometimes I just keep layering on filters to experiment with how an image looks. If I don’t think a filter makes the image look better, I can always hit Cancel instead of Apply.
I did just that with the top image for this article. I kept adding filters and effects till I was satisfied with the look of it. What’s neat about that is that your images will look unique because of all of the different combinations of filters and effects you can use.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us, Carol. It’s great to hear from a fellow PicMonkey fan!
Hello Carolyn,
I love using Picmonkey….just started using it recently..haven’t tried some of the things like the reverse effect you showed in the balloon, but now i know 🙂
And I like that a considerable amount of features are free..thanks for sharing this!
pragati
Hi Pragati, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Yes, I’ve been using PicMonkey since before it launched (when it was Picnik) and I’m still learning cool new tricks to edit images. I’m excited to share these with you and other Wonder of Tech readers who can use PicMonkey for free!
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts, Pragati.
Hey Carolyn,
What a great tutorial. I use PicMonkey from time to time but have found that what I use it for that Canva is easier for me to use.
I knew you could change colors and stuff too so thanks for pointing this out. I might have to give this another look. Sometimes I don’t seem to be able to create what I want and that’s when I’ll jump to another program.
Great share Carolyn, thanks again.
~Adrienne
Hi Adrienne, Yes, I do the opposite. Sometimes I will visit Canva for inspiration but I always end up back at PicMonkey to do the final edits. Somehow I find PicMonkey much more intuitive.
I hope these tips and tricks help you master PicMonkey, Adrienne!
Great post, just getting the hang of using picmonkey for improving the looks of my blogs. Thank you for the advice.
Hi Claudia, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I’m glad you found these tips to be helpful. Yes, PicMonkey is a must-have tool for bloggers to make the most of our images.
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts, Claudia!